U.S. gets Red Cross report on Gitmo
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The International Committee of the Red Cross recently provided the Bush administration with a report outlining its concerns about detainees at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the State Department said Thursday.
In a related development, two British Muslim men at the center of a recent Supreme Court case say the U.S. military is deceiving the public about interrogation techniques they claim they were subjected to during their two-year detention at Guantanamo.
In an open letter to President Bush and members of Congress, Shafiq Rasul and Asif Iqbal said their experiences as detainees in Guantanamo, known colloquially as "Gitmo," were similar to abuse seen in photographs of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.
Rasul and Iqbal were released from U.S. custody and returned to Britain in early March, weeks before the Supreme Court heard their appeal in oral arguments. They were among 16 men held at Guantanamo protesting their detention. (Full story)
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the Red Cross report, which was confidential in keeping with the group's policy, was shared with the department and other U.S. agencies, including the Pentagon and the National Security Council.
Boucher said the United States has had "regular meetings" with the Red Cross about the detainees at Guantanamo, and the subject has been a topic of discussion during meetings between Secretary of State Colin Powell and Red Cross President Jakob Kellengerger.
Powell has spoken in the past of the need to rapidly determine the fate of the detainees at Guantanamo and decide whether they should be put through U.S. military trials, handed back to their country of origin or freed altogether.
The report followed revelations that the Red Cross had shared concerns of alleged prison abuse of Iraqi prisoners with U.S. officials as early as October, well before the United States began investigating.
Usually the content of Red Cross reports on the treatment of prisoners are kept confidential so the organization can retain its access to the prisoners.
