Camp X-ray under investigation

2004-05-13 13:52

Baghdad - The International Committee of the Red Cross has presented the US government with a new report that is critical of the treatment of detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a senior defence official said on Thursday.

The report was turned over to Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz by the State Department on Tuesday, said the official, who was travelling with US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the report had not yet been analysed in detail but was critical.

Rumsfeld noted the report in an interview with reporters travelling with him on an unannounced trip to Iraq to meet with US troops and their commanders.

Rumsfeld said there would always be differences of opinions over whether the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo met the standards of the Geneva Conventions.

'Gee, that's unbelievable'

"There is a constant review of that, and people will say different things when they walk out," he said. "Some will say, gee, that's unbelievable how well that's done.

"Some will say that's terrific except that in my view it is mental torture to do something that is inconvenient in a certain way to a detainee, like standing up for a long period, or some other thing that someone else might say is not in any way abusive or harmful.

"There is no way to get everybody to agree because, when Geneva was prepared and agreed upon, they didn't go to that level of detail," he said.

Travelling with Rumsfeld was the defence department's general counsel, James Haynes, and Vice Admiral Albert Church, the US navy's inspector general, who just concluded a two-day review of conditions at Guantanamo.

Church said his investigation was focused on whether the secretary's orders and directions regarding the detention of detainees at Guantanamo were being carried out.

He said he reviewed transcripts of past ICRC meetings with Lieutenant General Geoffrey Miller, who is now running detainee operations in Iraq.

He told reporters he had found "no evidence of current abuse." He cautioned that his findings amounted only to a snapshot of conditions there, saying he had "high confidence" in them but not 100% confidence.

A review of the records found that there had been eight "minor infractions" of the rules at the detention centre during an 18-month to two-year period ranging from "humiliation to mild physical contact," he said.

The incidents involved four military police guards, three interrogators, and a barber who gave a detainee an "unauthorised haircut," which Church described as a "Mohawk or something like that".

"I characterised this to the secretary as general good news because it was clear to me that the incidents (were) being reported, number one; number two, the chain of command was taking swift and effective action," Church said.

- AFP