Gitmo Prisoners UPDATE

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Jiro

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Gitmo detainees treated humanely, U.S. report says

# Story Highlights
# Defense Department advises that violent detainees be allowed to pray, have rec time
# Attorney general announces task force on what to do with detainees at Gitmo
# DoD point man on counterterrorism will head task force, advise senior review board

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A new Defense Department report concludes that the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, treats detainees humanely, to a department official with knowledge of the report.

The conclusion comes in a Pentagon report prepared for President Obama, who has ordered the closing of the facility within a year. The Defense Department review also recommends that high- value and violent detainees be allowed to pray and have recreation time in groups of three, the official said.

The official declined to speak on the record because the report has not yet been delivered to the White House or publicly released.

Separately, Attorney General Eric Holder announced Friday a formal structure for deciding what to do with detainees held at the military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay.

Holder said the Justice Department's point man on counterterrorism, Matthew Olsen, will lead a multiagency detainee review task force, which will be responsible for making final recommendations to a senior review panel.

"The task force will consider whether it is possible to transfer or release detained individuals consistent with the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States," a Justice Department statement said.

Several detainees have claimed in court documents that they were tortured and subjected to inhumane treatment in the military prison at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay.

Most of the complaints concern the early years of the facility, after then-President Bush determined that "minimum standards for humane treatment" spelled out in the Geneva Conventions "did not apply to al Qaeda or Taliban detainees," according to a Senate Armed Services Committee report issued in December.

Holder announced earlier this week he plans to take a firsthand look at the Gitmo military facility and will take Olsen with him on the trip.
 
Guantánamo Meets Geneva Rules, Pentagon Study Finds
A Pentagon report requested by President Obama on the conditions at the Guantánamo Bay detention center concluded that the prison complies with the humane-treatment requirements of the Geneva Conventions. But it makes recommendations for improvements including increasing human contact for the prisoners, according to two government officials who have read parts of it.

The review, requested by Mr. Obama on his second day in office, is to be delivered to the White House next week.

The president’s request, made as part of a plan to close the prison within a year, was widely seen as an effort to defuse accusations that there were widespread abuses at Guantánamo, and that many detainees were suffering severe psychological effects after years of isolation.

The report, by Adm. Patrick M. Walsh, the vice chief of naval operations, describes steps that could be taken to allow detainees to speak to one another more often and to engage in group activities, the government officials said. For years, critics have said that many detainees spend as many as 23 hours a day within the confines of cement cells and often were allowed to exercise alone in fenced-off outdoor pens.

The report is being presented to a White House that some government officials have described as caught off-guard by the extreme emotions and political crosscurrents provoked by its plan to close the Guantánamo prison. Some critics said the report’s conclusions could intensify the debate about the prison, and put the Obama White House for the first time in the position of defending it.

The report came as officials separately said on Friday that the Obama administration had decided on the transfer of the first Guantánamo detainee since the president took office, a former British resident, Binyam Mohamed. Lawyers for Mr. Mohamed had drawn wide attention with accusations that he was tortured in Morocco on instructions from American intelligence agencies.

Mr. Mohamed, who is to be returned to Britain, was originally charged with plotting to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb” inside the United States. But the Pentagon official in charge of the Bush administration’s military commission system for conducting war-crimes trials dismissed those charges in October.

Also on Friday, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced the creation of a task force to begin reviewing the cases of the remaining 245 detainees. The group, which is to include representatives of military, intelligence and other agencies, is to be led by a career federal prosecutor, Matthew G. Olsen, who has been a senior Justice Department lawyer dealing with national security issues.

The administration’s plan to close Guantánamo includes a new effort to decide whether detainees can be released, transferred to the custody of other countries or prosecuted. In the report on the conditions at Guantánamo, Admiral Walsh reviewed many accusations of abuse that critics have made about the prison, said one Pentagon official who has seen the report.

The report concluded that the Pentagon was in compliance with the requirements of the Geneva Conventions. The review included some of the most contentious issues, including the forced feeding of hunger-striking detainees and claims that many prisoners were suffering from psychosis as a result of conditions in the detention center.

According to one official, the report noted that some detainees had difficulty communicating from cell to cell, a contention that many detainees’ lawyers have also made. The Pentagon has long insisted that no detainees are held in solitary confinement. Military officials have said instead that the prisoners are held in “single-occupancy cells.”

Some Pentagon officials have continued to press the case that the Bush administration’s approach to detainee issues — and the Guantánamo Bay prison itself — should not be abandoned. The report is likely to accelerate that behind-the-scenes struggle.

The White House had no comment Friday.

One Pentagon official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivities involved in challenging the White House plan to close the prison, argued that the report showed that the Bush administration had created a humane detention camp. Speaking of the remaining detainees, this official said the report showed that if the men were moved, they might “go from a humane environment to a less humane environment.”

Critics of the Guantánamo Bay detention center, which is on the grounds of the American naval base at the eastern end of Cuba, have been preparing for Admiral Walsh’s report. They said they were concerned that the new administration would use it to avoid major alterations to the Guantánamo detention camp during its final year.

Gitanjali Gutierrez, a lawyer for Guantánamo detainees at the Center for Constitutional Rights, said that she and other lawyers found that conditions have remained bleak since the start of the new administration.

Ms. Gutierrez said that a report by the rights center, to be released next week, asserts that two major Guantánamo prison buildings, known as Camp 5 and Camp 6, should be closed immediately. She said prisoners there continue to be held in isolation for as long as 24 hours a day, that psychological difficulties are treated as disciplinary infractions, and that many cells are windowless.

Ms. Gutierrez said detention camp officials have recently increased detainees’ opportunities for recreation and social interaction. She said detainees’ lawyers have been concerned that some of those moves were in anticipation of visits now being made by senior members of the new administration. The attorney general is to visit Monday.

“This is really running the risk that the review is just a big whitewash,” Ms. Gutierrez added, “and we expect more of the new administration.”
 
Now that those reports are out and rumors/pressures on the USA are defused, why not keep GITMO running where they are until all prisoners have had their day in court?
 
because the left-liberals and the ACLU wants to see GITMO closed. apparently they have no idea that there are no jails ran by the Taliban and Al Qaeda. they believed in killing all foreign hostages.
Plus some countries refused to take back soem of the GITMO prisoners like China. Saudi Arabia has a big resettlement program which apparently acording to Carnegie Endowment for International Peace actually work.

Now that those reports are out and rumors/pressures on the USA are defused, why not keep GITMO running where they are until all prisoners have had their day in court?
 
I wish that Obama need re-consider before make official to close the Gitmo prisons because of unable to find place to handle Gitmo detainees.
 
DOD changed their GS system to pay-for-performance program, NASP IIRC.
 
I wonder how much they got paid to say that?

Yup. And I wonder happened to the two trillion dollars the Department of Defense cannot account for.
I am personally disgusted that we are still caught up in the Bush administration's attempts to set terrorism apart from crime. Treating it as a crime subject to law enforcement processes has no political pizzazz and would not justify a war. As far as our doctrine is concerned, the "terrorists" have forfeited their legal rights and therefore are not entitled to a fair trial. Is there something wrong with this picture? HELL YES!
 
Yup. And I wonder happened to the two trillion dollars the Department of Defense cannot account for.
I am personally disgusted that we are still caught up in the Bush administration's attempts to set terrorism apart from crime. Treating it as a crime subject to law enforcement processes has no political pizzazz and would not justify a war. As far as our doctrine is concerned, the "terrorists" have forfeited their legal rights and therefore are not entitled to a fair trial. Is there something wrong with this picture? HELL YES!

the reason why DoD cannot account for $2 trillion is because it's classified for public information. I'm sure it's been spent on black ops and the budget set aside for discretionary fund such as bribing the tribal leader or person into cooperating with USA.

Please do not think first that it went to corrupted politicians' pockets. I'm sure it's happened many times but it's not my first thought and this is relatively small compared to what's needed to accomplish the mission.
 
So we are not question where the two trillion went? That is a hell lot of money and must be repaid. Figure out how much each citizen in the US owes on it. We see the fruits and cannot complain about it?
 
So we are not question where the two trillion went? That is a hell lot of money and must be repaid. Figure out how much each citizen in the US owes on it. We see the fruits and cannot complain about it?

the better question is - how much are you willing to pay for your freedom and security?

and in case you didn't know - of course there are investigations and hearings dedicated to seeing where the hell those $2 trillion go but the public does not need to know. I don't think all of you need to know. I'm sure they have created better protocol and procedures - a better oversight. That's why Gitmo Camp got better.
 
Gitmo Camp got beter because it was exposed for it atrocities.
 
the better question is - how much are you willing to pay for your freedom and security?

and in case you didn't know - of course there are investigations and hearings dedicated to seeing where the hell those $2 trillion go but the public does not need to know. I don't think all of you need to know. I'm sure they have created better protocol and procedures - a better oversight. That's why Gitmo Camp got better.

According to whom? Certainly not the detainees.
 
Gitmo Camp got beter because it was exposed for it atrocities.

because it was hastily put together and there was no clear guideline initially. This is not a movie where in the event of far-fetched scenario like alien or plague breakout and the soldiers would rush in and establish perimeter like they knew what to do in the first place.

This was first time for us and we learned from it and we got better. You've already seen the result of Bush's national security policy. **hint hint - US Airways 1549
 
And it wouldn't have gotten better if the atrocities had not been exposed.

you don't know that but I do because I doubt the government would continue this such thing for several years. That's why I continue to live here, pay my tax, and support my American government. If I know my government would commit such atrocities after atrocities... simple - pack up & leave for Canada and denounce my American citizenship.

:cool2:
 
you don't know that but I do because I doubt the government would continue this such thing for several years. That's why I continue to live here, pay my tax, and support my American government. If I know my government would commit such atrocities after atrocities... simple - pack up & leave for Canada and denounce my American citizenship.

:cool2:

Denial is a wonderful thing.
 
Denial is a wonderful thing.

:lol: Like I said - I doubt the government would continue this kind of atrocity for several years. Blame the media for exaggerated disinformation/misinformation and they're very effective at it.
 
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