Washington — The White House on Wednesday turned aside the international outcry over the treatment of terrorism suspects held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, casting the detainees as suicidal fanatics who would "engage in murder once again" if set free.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon is holding off on sending more of the al-Qaida and Taliban fighters to Cuba for security reasons, a defense official said Wednesday on condition of anonymity. With 150 there now, the makeshift prison is reaching capacity, and it could be easier for captives to create problems if they were doubled up in cells while more are being built.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said President Bush is "perfectly satisfied" that conditions at Guantanamo are humane and fair. Bush also believes that the detainees are linked to al-Qaida, "and if they were free they would engage in murder once again."
Fleischer also said Bush is equally concerned that U.S. soldiers guarding the detainees could be harmed in uprisings like the one staged in November by Taliban and al-Qaida members near Mazar-e-Sharif in which CIA operative Johnny "Mike" Spann was killed.
"These are not mere innocents," Fleischer said. "These are among the worst of the worst, who are being detained because of ... their willingness, their training to go out and kill, destroy and engage in suicide if they can take others with them."
Fleischer spoke after House Speaker Dennis Hastert defended the treatment of the suspects as stern but fair.
Hastert, R-Ill., said he and other congressional leaders discussed the prisoner treatment in a Wednesday morning meeting with Bush. He said the United States is providing the detainees humanely and will act in accordance with Geneva convention standards.
But, Hastert said, "Quite frankly, most of these prisoners are al Qaida, they're terrorists, they're people who, without conscience, took over 2,000 lives. I think they need to be dealt with on a very severe basis, yet fair."
European allies and human rights groups have criticized U.S. treatment of the detainees, saying they must be given the same rights as prisoners of war. Hastert disagreed.
"These aren't military people. They don't belong to a country, they don't wear a uniform, they're not part of an army," Hastert said. "It's a unique situation and we'll have to deal with it in a unique way."
Hastert echoed the sentiments of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who said Tuesday that critics are "misinformed" and America's priority is interrogating them to get information to prevent attacks not determining if they qualify as POWs.
"That is pure, simple self-defense of the United States of America," Rumsfeld said.
The controversy centers on the status of the 158 prisoners, mostly suspected al-Qaida and Taliban fighters who were flown to Guantanamo after being captured in the Afghanistan war.
Rumsfeld said they eventually would be charged or released. U.S. officials have not decided if they qualify as POWs, and calls them battlefield detainees. They are being treated "humanely," as the Geneva Conventions require for so-called unlawful combatants, the defense secretary said.
"No detainee has been harmed. No detainee has been mistreated in any way," Rumsfeld said.
European Union officials, plus officials from Germany and the Netherlands, some British legislators, the International Committee of the Red Cross and human rights groups have demanded the detainees be given POW status.
Under the Geneva Conventions, that would entitle them to trials under the same procedures as U.S. soldiers through court-martial or civilian courts not through military tribunals as the Bush administration has proposed.
Chris Patten, the European Union's external relations commissioner, said the West risks losing the moral high ground if it mistreats any of them.
"We have to make clear that what we are concerned about is justice, not vengeance," Patten said.
Al-Qaida fighters probably would not qualify as POWs because they wore no identifying insignia and did not abide by the laws of war, said Jamie Fellner, director of the U.S. program of Human Rights Watch.
But Taliban fighters, whether Afghan or Arab, made up Afghanistan's armed forces and should be entitled to POW status, Fellner said.
Some critics also have raised concerns that some U.S. soldiers, if captured, could be held as "unlawful combatants" by an enemy, because some wore local clothes, not uniforms, when inside Afghanistan. But Rumsfeld said that was unlikely because they carried identification as soldiers.
The controversy intensified over the weekend even among staunch ally Britain after British newspapers showed pictures of the detainees in blacked-out goggles, shackles and handcuffs. A British tabloid over the weekend ran a front-page photograph of one detainee, kneeling on rocky ground, under the headline "Tortured."
The detainees are shackled and blindfolded while being moved, but the restraints are removed once they are led to cells, Rumsfeld said.
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