Donald Rumsfeld said interrogators had gained valuable information from Guantanamo prisoners which had saved lives by helping authorities thwart attacks. (Photo: AP)
The United States would rather have detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp imprisoned by their home countries, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday.
Rumsfeld spoke a day after saying he was unaware of anyone in the Bush administration discussing closing the base in Cuba. Hours later, President Bush refused to rule out shutting the facility, saying his administration was "exploring all alternatives" for detaining the prisoners.
Human rights groups and former detainees say prisoners at Guantanamo have been mistreated. The Pentagon said last week that some U.S. personnel there mishandled prisoners' copies of the Quran, the Muslim holy book.
U.S. officials are waiting until Iraqi and Afghan authorities have the ability to deal with dangerous prisoners before handing over detainees from those nations, Rumsfeld said Thursday at a news conference during a NATO defense ministers' meeting.
"Our desire is not to have these people. ... Our goal is to have them in the hands of the countries of origin, for the most part," Rumsfeld said.
The defense secretary said interrogators had gained valuable information from Guantanamo prisoners which had saved lives by helping authorities thwart attacks.
The prison holds about 540 men accused of terrorism, most of them alleged members of al Qaeda or the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan that supported Osama bin Laden's terror network.
Former President Jimmy Carter this week added his voice to those of critics who say Guantanamo should be closed. Amnesty International has called the facility "the gulag of our time," which both Mr. Bush and Rumsfeld dismissed.
"The U.S. continues to suffer terrible embarrassment and a blow to our reputation ... because of reports concerning abuses of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo," Carter said.
Such reports have surfaced despite President Bush's "bold reminder that America is determined to promote freedom and democracy around the world," Carter said.
Last week's Pentagon disclosure of mishandling of the Quran followed a report in Newsweek, later retracted, that U.S. investigators had confirmed that a guard had deliberately flushed a prisoner's Quran in a toilet. The White House blamed that report for violent protests in Muslim nations.