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| U.S defends Guantanamo inmate indefinite detentions |
| By Reuters |
| Published: 06/20/2005 |
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The Bush administration defended the indefinite detention of foreign terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay last Wednesday while a senior Senate Democrat called the facility "an international embarrassment." During a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Republican Chairman Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania also encouraged Congress to help define the legal rights of roughly 520 men from more than 40 countries jailed at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. 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. Delaware Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden asked Deputy Associate Attorney General J. Michael Wiggins whether the Justice Department had "defined when there is the end of conflict." "No, sir," Wiggins responded. "If there is no definition as to when the conflict ends, that means forever, forever, forever these folks get held at Guantanamo Bay," Biden said. "It's our position that, legally, they can be held in perpetuity," Wiggins said. Earlier, 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 Guantanamo prisoners, if that means America can hold prisoners that long without charges. "I think that we can hold them as long as the conflict endures," Hemingway responded. Critics have decried the indefinite detention of Guantanamo prisoners, whom the United States has denied rights accorded under the Geneva Conventions to prisoners of war. The United States opened the Guantanamo prison camp in January 2002 after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America. |
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