Gonzales thwarted Cuban jail closure
March 24, 2007
WASHINGTON: As the newly appointed US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates
repeatedly argued for the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to be
shut down and for prisoners held there to be tried in a US court. With the
support of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Mr Gates told President George
W. Bush that the detention centre had become so tainted abroad that legal
proceedings at Guantanamo would be viewed as illegitimate, The New York Times
reported yesterday. Mr Gates suggested that prisoners held at Guantanamo
could be transferred to military brigs in the US, where they would remain in
the custody of the Pentagon and be subject to trial under military proceedings.
The Defence Secretary's appeal was an effort to turn Mr Bush's publicly
stated desire to close Guantanamo into a specific plan for action, US officials
told The New York Times. But his arguments were reportedly rejected after
embattled Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales and Vice-President Dick
Cheney's office strongly objected to the plan. While Mr Bush eventually
rejected the approach, officials at the National Security Council, Pentagon and
State Department continue to analyse options for the detention of terrorism
suspects, the newspaper said. The base at Guantanamo holds about 385
prisoners, among them 14 senior leaders of al-Qa'ida -- including Khalid Shaikh
Mohammed -- who were transferred to it last year from secret prisons run by the
Central Intelligence Agency.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21436969-2703,00.html
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