 |
Gates said Gimo prisoners should be tried on American soil to make the process credible. |
CAIRO — Backed by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has lobbied for the closure of the US-run Guantanamo prison in Cuba and succeeded in killing plans to expand the notorious facility, The New York Times revealed Friday, March 23.
Shortly after taking office, Gates called for shutting down the detention camp as soon as possible, said the Times, citing senior administration officials.
He pressed for moving the trials of the "terror suspects" at the camp to the United States, arguing that legal proceedings at Guant?namo would be viewed as illegitimate.
The base at Guant?namo holds about 385 prisoners, among them 14 senior leaders of Al Qaeda, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
Under the Pentagon’s current plans, some prisoners, including Mr. Mohammed, will face war crimes charges under military trials.
Amnesty International blasted on Thursday, March 22, the US military trials of terror suspects held in Guantanamo as shameless shows lacking the basic principles of independence and impartiality of the court.
Unchanged
But Gates's proposal was rejected President George W. Bush, noted the officials.
"The policy remains unchanged," Gordon D. Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, told the Times.
Gates's approach was also opposed by Vice President Dick Cheney, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other government lawyers, the officials said.
Opponents argue that moving the Guantanamo suspects to American soil would increase their constitutional and statutory rights.
They fear that the move could invite an explosion of civil litigation.
But one senior administration official, who is for closing the facility, said the battle might be renewed.
"Let’s see what happens to Gonzales," that official said, referring to speculation that Gonzales will be forced to step down because of the political uproar over the dismissal of US attorneys reportedly for opposing administration policies.
"I suspect this one isn’t over yet."
A recent report by the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva pressed for the closure of the detention center, saying acts committed against detainees amount to torture.
Several American and British dignitaries, including former American presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, have called for closing the facility.
No Expansion
Gates, however, succeed in killing plans to build a $100 million courthouse and detention complex at Guant?namo, the officials said.
He argued that the large and expensive project would leave the impression of a long-lasting American detainee operation there and that the money could be more effectively spent elsewhere by the Pentagon.
The United States had planned to build a large courtroom compound in the naval Guantanamo base to try terror suspects there.
The Guantanamo Bay has only one courthouse at the moment.
Gates’s position on Guant?namo marks a sharply different approach from that taken by his processor Donald Rumsfeld.
It also demonstrated a new dynamic in the US administration, in which Gates was teaming up with Rice, who often was at loggerheads with Rumsfeld, according to the daily.
Several rights groups have repeatedly said that Guantanamo has become a symbol of abuse and represents a system of detention that is betraying the best US values and undermines international standards.
Amnesty International once likened it to gulag prisons, the Soviet detention centers notorious for torturing political prisoners and suspects.
|
