Guantanamo humane, Pentagon finds

by Josh Meyer

The Pentagon has concluded that the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay meets the standards for humane treatment of detainees established in the Geneva Conventions accords.

In a report for President Obama on conditions at Guantanamo, the Pentagon recommended some changes, primarily providing some of the most troublesome inmates with more group recreation and opportunities for prayer, according to the administration official, who has read the report and spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing its confidential nature.

The lengthy report was done by a top Navy official, Adm. Patrick M. Walsh, and done in response to Obama's Jan. 22 executive order to close the facility within a year.

The report, which has not officially been released, "has been completed and will be delivered to the White House in accordance with the president's executive order,'' said a Pentagon spokesman, Cmdr. Jeffrey D. Gordon.

Some of the most dangerous inmates at the naval facility in Cuba have been prohibited from meeting with other prisoners for prayer or socialization, instead kept in their cells for as long as 23 hours a day. That includes alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other self-styled Al Qaeda leaders charged with overseeing the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, who are likely to be affected by the new proposed reforms.

Obama has criticized the detention center, and human rights advocates have condemned it as violating the Geneva Conventions, which were established to protect the rights of those held in detention by other countries, including in times of war.

See the rest of the report on Guantanamo and the Pentagon's review in Tribune newspapers and here in the Swamp:

The administration official said that the report's primary conclusions supported the Department of Defense's longstanding contention that Guantanamo was in compliance with the international conventions, including Article 3, which requires the humane treatment of prisoners taken in unconventional armed conflicts such as the war on terrorism.

``The bottom line is that the report found that Guantanamo is in compliance with the Geneva conventions, which we have maintained for several years. So the report essentially validated our procedures and processes,'' said the administration official.

Human rights groups are planning to take issue with Walsh's finding that Guantanamo complies with Geneva requirements. The Center for Constitutional Rights, a group of attorneys who represent detainees, planned a news conference early next week.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. Friday appointed a senior Justice Department official, Matthew Olsen, to head an inter-agency task force looking into how to close Guantanamo and deal with the more than 200 men being detained there.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration said Friday it is not ready to extend legal rights to the prisoners held at the U.S. air base in Afghanistan.

Instead, an administration lawyer told a judge who is reviewing the issue that the government, for now, "adheres to the previously articulated position" of the Bush administration.

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that the prisoners held at Guantanamo had the right to challenge the case against them in a federal court. The justices said these prisoners had been held for years in a prison that is, for all practical purposes, part of United States' territory.

It was not clear, however, whether this ruling was limited to Guantanamo only, or could be extended to other long-term prisoners in the war against terror.

Lawyers who represent several men held at the Bagram prison in Afghanistan said their clients were entitled to legal rights as well.

Bush administration lawyers disagreed. They said that the U.S. did not exercise sovereign control in Afghanistan, and the prisoners were held in a "theatre of war."

When the new administration took power, U.S. District Judge John Bates said he would give its officials a month to decide whether they wanted to change its policy toward the Bagram prisoners.

Michael Hertz, an acting assistant attorney general, filed a two-line statement with the judge Friday declining his offer.

David Savage contributed to this report.