WASHINGTON, 16 June 2005 — The Bush administration defended the indefinite detention of foreign terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay yesterday while a senior Senate Democrat called the facility “an international embarrassment.”
The US Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony from Pentagon and Justice Department officials on the military trials planned for some Guantanamo inmates and the administrative review of whether all the prisoners are being properly held as “enemy combatants.”
Many have been held for more than three years. Only four have been charged. The administration has argued it has the right to hold the prisoners as long as the war on terrorism continues.
The committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, said the United States may face terrorism “as long as you and I live.” He asked Brig. Gen. Thomas Hemingway, who oversees military trials of prisoners, if that means America can hold the prisoners that long without charges.
“I think that we can hold them as long as the conflict endures,” Hemingway responded.
Deputy Associate Attorney General J. Michael Wiggins testified later, “It’s our position that legally they can be held in perpetuity.” Critics have decried the indefinite detention of prisoners at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to whom the United States has denied rights accorded under the Geneva Conventions to prisoners of war.
The Pentagon says the United States holds about 520 prisoners from more than 40 countries at the Guantanamo prison camp, which it opened in January 2002 after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America.
Navy Rear Adm. James McGarrah called “rigorous and fair” the Pentagon’s annual review of the status of Guantanamo prisoners — a process that can lead to their release. In those proceedings, detainees are prohibited from having lawyers and cannot see all the government’s evidence relating to them. Hemingway said the military commissions created by the Pentagon for trials of Guantanamo prisoners were the appropriate forum for trying them.
Human and legal rights groups have said the rules created by the administration are heavily biased toward the prosecution, and the trials have been held up due to legal fights in the court system.
“Guantanamo Bay is an international embarrassment to our nation, to our ideals, and it remains a festering threat to our security,” Leahy said.
“Our great country, America, was once viewed as a leader in human rights and the rule of law, and justly so. Guantanamo has undermined our leadership, has damaged our credibility, has drained the world’s goodwill for America at an alarming rate,” Leahy added.
Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican who heads the committee, said the panel will consider putting time limits on the disposition of cases in US federal courts on detainees’ rights.
The US Supreme Court in June 2004 ruled that detainees had the right to go to federal courts to seek their release from Guantanamo. Specter noted that there have been sometimes contradictory lower-court rulings since then. “I think any fair analysis would say that we have a crazy quilt which we are dealing with here,” Specter said of the rulings.
“They’ve been sitting in the Court of Appeals for a very long period of time,” Specter said. Specter said judges do not like time limits imposed by the US Congress. “We don’t want to interfere with their judicial independence, but the Congress does have the authority to establish time parameters, which we have done in a number of situations,” Specter said.
In questioning by Leahy, Hemingway said he did not know the exact number of prisoners held at Guantanamo. He also said he was not aware of any prisoners held at Guantanamo under the control of a US government agency other than the military, such as the CIA.
