Washington ? They’ve been called killers, terrorists, liars, the enemy.

Now, the planned release of several suspects from the U.S. military’s high-security prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, raises the questions: How many more should be let go? Might some have been imprisoned wrongly to start with?

“The administration was extremely gung-ho in describing everyone held as terrorists and killers while denying them the most basic rights,” said Amnesty International USA spokesman Alistair Hodgett.

He called plans to release in the coming days of four of the 598 detainees “at least a partial climb-down” by the Bush administration.

“I think what we have is the United States holding people who are known to be totally innocent,” said Thomas Wilner, attorney for a dozen detained Kuwaitis.

Citing safety considerations, the Pentagon refused to name those being be released or reveal their nationalities.

Two are elderly, officials said Friday on condition of anonymity. At least two are reported to be Pakistani, since Pakistan’s government requested that the United States release 58 detainees after questioning them and judging they were not a threat to the United States.

Foreign delegations have gone to interrogate their citizens held among the 598 men from almost four dozen countries at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba. The Bush administration has labeled them “enemy combatants” and said they don’t have prisoner of war rights.

Some have been held almost a year, captured in November by Afghan fighters on the ground as Americans waged the air campaign that opened the war against Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network and the country’s now-ousted Taliban regime.

Transfers of prisoners from Afghanistan to Guantanamo began in January.

Families, rights groups and legal observers have been waiting for more details since Wednesday when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said a small number of men were “likely to come out of the other end of the chute.”

They’ve gone through a process that found them no longer needed for intelligence, not wanted for prosecution and no threat to America or its allies, he said.

Families of the Kuwaitis are “waiting on pins and needles” to learn whether their sons and husbands are among those getting out, Wilner said. Kuwaitis said months ago their government was assured by Americans that at least nine of their nationals would be freed because they’d committed no crime. U.S. officials deny that.

Pentagon officials have played down the release of prisoners, noting it’s a small number, and the men are not the first to get out of Guantanamo.

In 10 months since they opened the prison, officials have sent out only two. One was reported mentally ill, the other an American transferred for detention inside U.S. territory rather than outside for legal reasons.

“It’s a small positive step that they are recognizing that they are holding some people wrongly,” said Hodgett, but he contended the administration still has not proved “statements over the months that these are hard-core killers.”

Some observers have questioned whether the move is aimed at placating Pakistan, where President Pervez Musharraf has taken a huge political risk by becoming one of the strongest allies in the U.S.-led terror war.

“Why the Pakistanis? Were they prioritized?” said Hodgett. “Are these people being released because some kind of judicial process happened, or are they just political bargaining chips?”