Pentagon invites critics to inspect Guantanamo jail

The Pentagon yesterday invited more members of Congress to visit the Guantanamo jail for foreign terrorism suspects, saying criticism by some US lawmakers showed "a real ignorance of what's really going on".

"We invite more members to go down to Guantanamo and see what's going on, because what's going on down there is not the way it's being described by certain members of Congress," said chief Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita.

"The way they are describing it is unfortunate, and in some places I believe those people will regret having made those kind of comments."

The Pentagon says it holds about 520 men at the Guantanamo prison camp in Cuba, which was opened in January 2002. Many have been held for more than three years. Only four have been charged. Most were detained in Afghanistan.

Di Rita's comments came a day after a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in which some senators, including Republican Chairman Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, said congressional action may be needed to define detainees' legal rights.

Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the panel's top Democrat, said the prison at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay was "an international embarrassment to our nation, to our ideals, and it remains a festering threat to our security".

Another senior Senate Democrat, Richard Durbin of Illinois, this week compared how US jailers treated Guantanamo prisoners to actions by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and former Cambodian leader Pol Pot. Some lawmakers, and former President Jimmy Carter, have called for the prison to be closed.

"Comments that are being made up on Capitol Hill about what's happening at Guantanamo reflect a real ignorance of what's really going on," Di Rita said.

The United States has classified the detainees as "enemy combatants" and denied them rights accorded to prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. A Justice Department official said this week that the US Government could legally hold the prisoners "in perpetuity".

An FBI memo has accused Pentagon personnel at Guantanamo of using "torture techniques", and the Pentagon recently detailed five cases in which US jailers "mishandled" the Koran.

 

- REUTERS