One Pentagon official, speaking anonymously because no one had been authorized to discuss the report publicly, said it showed that the Bush administration created a humane detention camp that has been unfairly characterized by critics. Speaking of the remaining 245 detainees there, this official said the report underscored that if the men are moved, they may “go from a humane environment to a less humane environment.”
Guantánamo Meets Geneva Rules, Study Finds
February 21, 2009
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
A Pentagon report requested by President Obama on the conditions at the Guantánamo Bay detention center concludes that the prison complies with the humanitarian requirements of the Geneva conventions, but it makes many recommendations for increasing human contact among the prisoners, according to two government officials who have read portions of it.
The review, requested by President Obama on the second day of his administration, is due to be delivered to the White House this weekend.
The request, made as part of a plan to close the center within a year, was widely seen as an effort by the new administration to defuse the power of allegations during the Bush administration that there were widespread abuses at Guantánamo, and that many detainees were suffering severe psychological effects after years of isolation.
The review, conducted by Adm. Patrick M. Walsh, the vice chief of naval operations, describes a series of 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 of the prison have said that many detainees spend as many as 23 hours a day within the confines of cement cells and were only permitted recreation alone in fenced-off outdoor pens.
The report, which Admiral Walsh is scheduled to discuss publicly at the Pentagon next week, is being presented to a White House that some government officials have described as caught off guard by the extreme emotions and political cross-currents provoked by Guantánamo. Some critics said that the report’s conclusions are likely to intensify the debate about the prison, and put the Obama White House for the first time in the position of defending it.
Included in the report are recommendations to increase social contact among the 16 prisoners described by the Bush administration as “high value detainees,” the men once held in secret overseas prisons by the Central Intelligence Agency. Among them are the accused architects of many major terrorist attacks, including those of Sept. 11, 2001.
According to one official, the report notes that some detainees have great difficulty communicating from cell to cell, a contention that many detainees’ lawyers have also made. Though many detainees at Guantánamo are held in their cells alone, the Pentagon has long insisted that none of the men are held in solitary confinement. Military officials instead have said the prisoners are held in “single-occupancy cells.”
A Pentagon official who has seen the report said that a military team with Admiral Walsh conducted a detailed review of many specific allegations of abuse that critics have made about the prison, and that the team 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 a large number of the prisoners are suffering from psychosis as a result of conditions in the detention center.
The White House did not immediately respond on Friday to a request for comment.
It has been clear that some Pentagon officials have continued to press the case that the Bush administration’s approach to handling detainee issues — and the Guantánamo Bay prison itself — should not be abandoned. The report is likely to continue that behind-the-scenes struggle.
One Pentagon official, speaking anonymously because no one had been authorized to discuss the report publicly, said it showed that the Bush administration created a humane detention camp that has been unfairly characterized by critics. Speaking of the remaining 245 detainees there, this official said the report underscored that if the men are moved, they may “go from a humane environment to a less humane environment.”
Critics of the Guantánamo Bay detention center, which is located on the grounds of an 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 Guantánamo during the year President Obama has said it may take to close the prison.
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 there even after the start of the new administration.
Ms. Gutierrez said that a report by the rights center, to be released next week, concludes that two major prison buildings at the detention camp, known as Camp 5 and Camp 6, should be closed immediately. She said prisoners there continue to be held in what she called isolation for as long as 24 hours a day, that psychological difficulties are treated as disciplinary infractions, and that many cells in the two concrete buildings are windowless.
Although reporters have been permitted on Pentagon-led tours of many part of the prison, the Pentagon has barred interviews with detainees.
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, Eric H. Holder Jr., is due to visit on 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.”
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