Bush Is Open to Closing Guantanamo Prison Camp

President Bush on Wednesday left open the possibility that the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could be shut down in the face of mounting criticism of alleged prisoner abuse.

“We’re exploring all alternatives as to how best to do the main objective, which is to protect America,” Bush said when asked in an interview with Fox News Channel’s Neil Cavuto if he would close the detention center.

Bush said the Guantanamo Bay detainees were being treated in accordance with international rules and that allegations of mistreatment were investigated. He defended the policy of holding enemy combatants.

“It’s in our nation’s interest that we learn a lot about those people that are still in detention, because we’re still trying to find out how to better protect our country,” he said. “What we don’t want to do is let somebody out that comes back and harms us.”

The Pentagon disclosed last week that U.S. guards or interrogators at Guantanamo kicked, stepped on and splashed urine on the Koran. That followed an earlier report in Newsweek, later retracted, that U.S. investigators had confirmed that a guard had deliberately flushed a prisoner’s Koran in a toilet.