The Telegraph reports a United Nations inquiry has calls for the immediate closure of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay and the prosecution of officers and politicians accused of torturing detainees.
The demands are contained in the final report of the U.N. Human Rights Commission's working group on arbitrary detention:
The report wants the Bush administration to ensure that all allegations of torture are investigated by US criminal courts, and that "all perpetrators up to the highest level of military and political command are brought to justice".
According to the Telegraph Washington officials yesterday denounced the report as "a hatchet job:"
"This shows precisely what is wrong with the United Nations today," said a senior official. "These people are supposed to be undertaking a serious investigation of the facts relating to Guantanamo.
"Instead, they deliver a report with a bunch of old allegations from lawyers representing released detainees that are so generalised that you cannot even tell what they are talking about.
"When the UN produces an unprofessional hatchet job like this it discredits the whole organisation."
The article states the report is also "deeply critical" of the force-feeding of detainees on hunger strike:
The authors argue that force-feeding is akin to torture, and demands that "the authorities in Guantanamo Bay do not force-feed any detainee who is capable of forming a rational judgment and is aware of the consequences of refusing food."
But US officials refuted the suggestion that force-feeding is torture, arguing that they had a duty under international law to protect the lives of the detainees.
"We have a duty to prevent people killing themselves," said an official, "and we are proud of the fact that none of the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay has died since it opened."
The Los Angeles Times says the report focuses on the U.S. government's legal basis for the detentions as described in its formal response to the U.N. inquiry: "The law of war allows the United States — and any other country engaged in combat — to hold enemy combatants without charges or access to counsel for the duration of hostilities. Detention is not an act of punishment, but of security and military necessity. It serves the purpose of preventing combatants from continuing to take up arms against the United States."
The U.S. has released or transferred more than 260 detainees from Guantanamo Bay. According to the Times there have been at least 12 instances where released Guantanamo detainees have resumed attacks against the coalition.
The fact that any, let alone 12, released detainees rejoined the war against us is more justification than I need to believe those found to be enemy combatants should be held until the war is over. As for force feeding detainees who go on a hunger strike, just imagine the hullabaloo if one of the detainees manages to die.
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