Rumsfeld to Discuss Future of Guantanamo Prisoners

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, defending the U.S. policy of open-ended detention for war prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is expected to describe plans today for releasing up to 20 of them while declaring that others will face imprisonment for the indefinite future.

Rumsfeld’s planned comments come amid increasing criticism from human rights groups about a new form of detention that began with the war in Afghanistan and is now entering its third year.

A senior U.S. military official said Thursday that Rumsfeld plans to speak “broadly” in Miami today about the imprisoned combatants and their treatment at Guantanamo, noting that 85 to 90 of the prisoners have been released and an additional 10 to 20 could be transferred in the near future. More than 600 prisoners remain.

But Pentagon strategists emphasize that many of those being held pose a potential threat to U.S. security while little is known in some cases about their potential connections to Al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations.

“It is a fact that international law permits us to keep enemy combatants for the duration of the conflict,” the senior official said.

Rumsfeld will speak to soldiers and commanders at the Miami headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command. The Southern Command is one of five regional American military headquarters throughout the globe and oversees the naval base prison at Guantanamo Bay. SoCom, as it is known in military parlance, is responsible for an area encompassing 32 countries and 14.5 million square miles. Rumsfeld also will speak to Miami business leaders today.

Civil rights advocates have lamented the Bush administration’s decision to hold prisoners indefinitely without granting them the privileges of prisoners under the Geneva Convention and with no guarantee of a trial. Six of the detainees could be tried by a military commission, U.S. officials have said.

“Quite a number” of the Guantanamo detainees are the subject of negotiations for transfer to home countries, the senior military official said. But there are some whose cases may never merit prosecution under a military tribunal or commission and who will continue to be held, the official said.

Rumsfeld “will talk about the nature of the kinds of people that are detained out there,” the official said. “We’ve got people with clear connections to the Al Qaeda. There’s a significant number of them that are real bona-fide bad guys.”

Regarding prisoners being transferred, the official said that U.S. officials “have no desire to detain people” without reason.