Washington — Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, under fire from human rights groups, said Tuesday the United States is treating foreign prisoners detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, "humanely," and in accordance with Geneva Conventions.
The prisoners, mostly suspected al-Qaida fighters flown to the U.S. military base in Cuba after being captured in Afghanistan, are being given treatment that's "proper, it's humane, it's appropriate, and it is fully consistent with international conventions," Rumsfeld said.
As Rumsfeld spoke Tuesday, American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh began his journey home from the war in Afghanistan on Tuesday to face charges he conspired with Islamic radicals to kill fellow countrymen.
Also Tuesday, the Pentagon said another unmanned Predator spy plane crashed. The aircraft at least the second Predator lost in the Afghan war went down in Pakistan while returning to base.
Rumsfeld said the United States has not decided if the detainees should be treated as prisoners of war, and for now calls them battlefield detainees. Rumsfeld said the Geneva Conventions call for so-called "unlawful combatants" to be treated humanely, and the United States military is treating them humanely.
"No detainee has been harmed. No detainee has been mistreated in any way," the defense secretary said.
Rumsfeld also said that one of the detainees at Guantanamo has threatened to kill Americans, and another detainee has bitten a U.S. military guard.
The European Union has joined protests from the Netherlands, Germany, British legislators, Amnesty International and the International Committee of the Red Cross, demanding that the detained terrorist suspects from the Afghanistan war be given prisoner-of-war status, subject to the Geneva Conventions.
The West risks losing support in the fight against terrorism if it mistreats the prisoners, said the EU's external relations commissioner, Chris Patten.
But Rumsfeld said such criticisms were not taking into account the grave danger the detainees pose to military guards. He noted that al-Qaida prisoners at a fortress at Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan during the war were able to smuggle weapons under their clothing, including grenades, allowing them to stage a deadly uprising.
The detainees at Guantanamo are receiving "warm showers, toiletries, water, clean clothes, blankets, regular, culturally appropriate meals, prayer mats, and the right to practice their religions," in addition to modern medical care, writing materials and visits from the International Red Cross, the defense secretary said.
When the prisoners are moved, they pose a higher risk and are restrained more forcefully, Rumsfeld said.
Lindh was to be sent to the United States and not Guantanamo because he is an American citizen. He was leaving the Navy assault ship USS Bataan in the northern Arabian Sea where he has been held, a Pentagon official said on condition of anonymity.
The official would give few details about Lindh except to say he would stop somewhere in the region most likely at the U.S. base at the southern Afghan city of Kandahar before continuing to suburban Washington to await trial.
U.S. officials have said Lindh would be handed over to the Justice Department and the federal court district in northern Virginia, where a Frenchman, Zacarias Moussaoui, is awaiting trial for alleged complicity in the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Lindh, a 20-year-old Californian who converted to Islam four years ago, allegedly trained at an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan. He was captured in November in the siege of Kunduz and survived the uprising near Mazar-e-Sharif.
The conspiracy charge can carry a life sentence.
There was no indication the Predator crash resulted from hostile fire, said Cmdr. Frank Merriman of U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla.
The Predator crash was at least the second in the region in the anti-terror campaign started after the Sept. 11 attacks on America.
In November the Pentagon said one had crashed in bad weather. Also, in late September, before the bombing started in Afghanistan, the Pentagon acknowledged it had lost contact with one.
The drone can take pictures and listen to enemy communications, flying at 25,000 feet. An entire Predator system including a ground control station and four aircraft costs about $25 million.
Predators have seen heavy use in Afghanistan, including by the CIA, which has flown some armed with missiles on their wings to attack Taliban and al-Qaida targets.
No comments
Commenting is turned off for this story.