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Close Guantanamo, says senator
06/06/2005 07:50 - (SA)
Washington - The top Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee urged the Bush administration on Sunday to close its prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, calling it more trouble than it was worth.
"I think we should end up shutting it down, moving those prisoners," Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware said as he appeared on ABC's This Week program.
He said inmates who still have intelligence value should be moved to other locations, but the rest should be sent back to their home countries.
The detention centre at a US naval base in Guantanamo Bay was set up in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks for terrorism suspects captured in Afghanistan and other parts of the world. About 550 detainees have been held there on average since the beginning of the war on terror.
But the facility has been plagued by charges of prisoner abuse and improper behaviour by prison guards, including the latest admission by the Pentagon that one copy of the Koran, Islam's holy book, was once kicked by guards and another was sprayed with urine.
In its recent report, human rights group Amnesty International characterised the Guantanamo Bay detention camp "the gulag of our times."
Biden did not agree with that description, but said the facility was doing the United States more harm than good.
"The bottom line is I think more Americans are in jeopardy as a consequence of the perception that exists worldwide with its existence than if there were no Gitmo," Biden stated, using Pentagon jargon for the name of the base.
Independent commission
Biden introduced a bill that would set up an independent commission to look at situation in Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and other US-run detention facilities to make sure basic human rights there were being upheld.
He said the legislation will soon get a hearing in the Senate judiciary committee.
"I think we should get on with this, clean it up, and move on," Biden pointed out.
The New York Times, in an editorial published in its Sunday edition, shared Biden's view, saying that shutting down the Guantanamo Bay camp "would pay instant dividends around the world, not only toward repairing America's reputation but also toward enhancing its overall security."
But proponents of the move face strong opposition not only from the Pentagon and congressional Republicans, but also from some prominent Democrats of the Senate foreign relations committee.
"I don't go so far as saying go to shut down Guantanamo," said Senator Christopher Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut, who favours congressional hearings into admitted and alleged abuses at the centre.
"It's important for people to think about us, that we follow the rule of law," Dodd said. "We're not doing that at Guantanamo."
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