Camp X-Ray

 


Time 
January 28, 2002

  
Camp X-Ray

  When is a war prisoner not a POW? When the U.S. brings Afghan 
detainees to Guantanamo Bay

  
By Michael Elliott

  It's not going to be a country club," said Defense Secretary 
Donald Rumsfeld last week, describing the new military detention 
camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and nobody ever expected it would 
be. The 110 al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners admitted to "Gitmo" 
by the end of last week are, said Rumsfeld, "the hardest of the 
hard core," men who had killed "dozens and dozens of people." 
But though it may lack tennis courts and a putting green, the 
amenities are better than you'd find in a cave at Tora Bora. 
True, prisoners are now confined to 6-ft. by 8-ft. chain-link 
enclosures with concrete floors and tin roofs (Rumsfeld thinks 
it's "pejorative" to call them cages). But relief will come; in 
three months, the Pentagon hopes to replace the facility with 
something more permanent.

  In the meantime, the prisoners at Camp X-Ray--as the place has 
been called since the early 1990s when it housed Haitian 
refugees--have been given thin green mats and blankets on which 
to sleep and pray, and are allowed to shower and exercise. They 
are provided with a medical exam upon admission, and their diet 
(is someone making a point about diversity here?) ranges from 
bagels and cream cheese to rice and beans--all eaten with 
plastic utensils--after which the prisoners may clean their 
teeth with specially shortened brushes. (The caution makes 
sense; in 2000 Mamdouh Salim, an al-Qaeda operative awaiting 
trial in New York City for his part in the 1998 embassy 
bombings, used a comb to stab a prison guard through the eye.)

  So far, humanitarian groups have been muted in their criticism 
of the conditions at Guantanamo. Last week a delegation from the 
International Committee of the Red Cross arrived to inspect the 
camp and offer private recommendations on its operation. But in 
the European press, the prisoners' lot has become a public issue 
of contention among those who demand that U.S. conduct be above 
suspicion. Three detainees are said to have claimed to be 
British citizens. Politicians and commentators in London are now 
clamoring that all held in Gitmo must be guaranteed treatment in 
accordance with international law. The Daily Telegraph, a paper 
usually so conservative that it makes Pat Buchanan look 
vegetarian, warned Washington of the need to draw a "distinction 
between civilized society and the apocalyptic savagery of those 
who would destroy it."

  At the heart of the matter is a question of legality. The 
Pentagon has resisted calling the detainees prisoners of war, 
preferring the terms unlawful combatants or battlefield 
detainees. It's easy to see why. Under the Geneva Convention, 
those holding true POWs are bound to release them at the end of 
hostilities; but that is the last thing the U.S. wants to do 
with men who may be al-Qaeda operatives. Moreover, by convention 
(though the law seems to be murky here) POWs don't need to tell 
their captors anything other than their name, rank, serial 
number and birthday. But for Washington, the whole point of the 
detention is to conduct interrogations and thus head off new 
acts of terrorism.

  The Geneva Convention does contemplate that some irregular 
forces captured in battle need not be considered POWs. That may 
well apply to members of al-Qaeda, a free-floating band of 
terrorists. But not all of those at Gitmo are al-Qaeda men. 
Some--the Pentagon won't say how many--were members of the 
Taliban and presumably thought they were part of the Afghan 
army. Are they POWs? Washington says no, because the Taliban had 
no clear chain of command and was not a legitimate government. 
That may be so; unfortunately, as Amnesty International has 
pointed out, under the Geneva Convention the Pentagon has no 
business making such a determination. Those who fall into the 
enemy's hands are entitled to POW status until a "competent 
tribunal" has determined their status. In the case of those in 
Cuba, that hasn't happened.

  More curious still is the matter of the prisoners' ultimate 
fate. Rumsfeld has laid out four options: a military trial, a 
trial in U.S. criminal courts, return to their home countries 
for prosecution, or continued detention "while additional 
intelligence is gathered." The last seems a distinct 
possibility; the Pentagon plans to build 2,000 cells at Camp 
X-Ray. "This will be a big deal down there for at least two 
years, guaranteed," says Army Lieut. General B.B. Bell, who 
commands Fort Hood, Texas, the base from which military police 
have been deployed to Cuba. But it's hard to find a 
justification for such detention in the Geneva Convention or 
anywhere else. Leaving the prisoners "indefinitely beyond the 
reach of any legal regime," said the Economist last week, "would 
put America--pre-eminently a nation of laws--itself outside the 
law."

  Until the Pentagon sorts out the legal issues, criticism from 
Europe is likely to grow. Still, things could be worse. The 
prisoners may be in Cuba, but nobody has yet forced them to 
listen to Fidel Castro's long-winded speeches. Now that really 
would be cruel.

  
With Reporting by Mark Thompson/Washington