Growing embarrassment at senior levels within the Bush administration over the Guantánamo Bay detention centre in Cuba is driving an intensifying internal debate on how and when the camp can be closed.
Key advisers to President George Bush, such as the Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, and Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State, acknowledge that the continuing controversy over the camp is damaging the country’s interests and standing.
Administration officials suggested this week that a consensus was developing in favour of closing the camp soon. ”The push [for closure] has reached a high point,” one official said.
Rice said this month: ”We don’t have any desire to be the world’s jailer … I don’t think anyone wants to see Guantánamo open one day longer than is necessary.”
Gates admitted in March that the credibility of the legal system at the camp had been tainted by reports of torture. He has suggested that detainees should be tried on US soil.
Pressure to act is also coming from Congress. Steny Hoyer, the Democratic majority leader in the House of Representatives, described Guantánamo this week as ”an international disgrace that every day continues to sully this great nation’s reputation”.
The Guantánamo camp has been used to hold hundreds of foreign terrorist suspects without charge or trial since the September 11 2001 attacks and has become a worldwide symbol of perceived US disregard for human rights. About 375 foreign nationals are detained there. – Guardian Unlimited