Cheney defends Guantanamo
2005-06-24 18:32
Washington - Defending the treatment of prisoners at the United States jail in Guantanamo Bay, vice-president Dick Cheney says they are well treated, well fed and "living in the tropics".
The Bush administration had faced allegations of inmate abuse at the jail and of unjustly detaining suspects.
Amnesty International recently compared it to Soviet-era gulags, and other Republicans had questioned whether it should remain open.
President George W Bush called Amnesty's report "absurd" and last week invited journalists to go to Guantanamo and see for themselves that detainees were being treated humanely.
Cheney described prison conditions in more glowing terms, saying the US spent heavily to build a new facility there.
Got everything they want
Cheney said: "They're very well treated down there. They're living in the tropics. They're well fed. They've got everything they could possibly want.
"There isn't any other nation in the world that would treat people who were determined to kill Americans the way we're treating these people."
Asked if the detention centre should be shut down and the prisoners transferred, Cheney said, "it's a vital facility" and must continue operating.
The approximately 520 remaining detainees were "terrorists. They're bomb-makers.
Cheney said: "They're facilitators of terror. They're members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. If you let them out, they'll go back to trying to kill Americans."
- AP