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Briton repeats: Close Gitmo

Attorney General Lord Goldsmith says fundamental problems remain.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published February 13, 2007

MIAMI - Revised rules for the treatment and military trials of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp are "too little and too late," Britain's attorney general said Monday, repeating his call to close the facility at a U.S. naval base in Cuba.

Attorney General Lord Goldsmith said Guantanamo remains a symbol of injustice because prisoners cannot use American courts to protest their detention and may be convicted of crimes on the basis of coerced evidence and other means not typically allowed in civilian courts.

"There remain fundamental problems with this system of detention," Goldsmith told the American Bar Association at its meeting in Miami.

He first called for Guantanamo's closure last year, before the Supreme Court struck down the Bush administration's plan to use military commissions to try some detainees and Congress sent President Bush a new law intended to answer the court's objections.

Goldsmith said the fight against terrorists must be won not only through force, but also values and ideas.

"The presence of Guantanamo makes it so much more difficult to do this for all of us," he said.

Cmdr. J.D. Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, said the detentions have allowed interrogators to learn information to avert terrorist attacks and kept so-called enemy combatants from returning to the battlefield.

There are almost 400 people suspected of ties to al-Qaida and the Taliban being held at the military's prison. None has been tried, although Defense Department officials have said they envision trials for 60 to 80 of those held there.

[Last modified February 13, 2007, 01:14:50]