WASHINGTON — Even as Bush administration officials defend the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, concern is growing internally that it has blighted America's image abroad, and officials are reconsidering options for the offshore detention compound built after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Top administration officials continue to publicly support the prison as necessary for U.S. counter-terrorism efforts.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday June 25, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 54 words Type of Material: Correction
Guantanamo Bay -- An article in the June 15 Section A about the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) had urged its closing. In fact, Martinez said June 10 that the Bush administration should consider closing the base, which he said had become an "icon for bad news."
On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld issued a broad defense of the Guantanamo Bay prison and the treatment detainees received at the hands of U.S. forces.
"The United States government, let alone the U.S. military, does not want to be in the position of holding suspected terrorists any longer than is absolutely necessary," Rumsfeld said. "But as long as there remains a need to keep terrorists from striking again, a facility will continue to be needed."
Within the Pentagon and State Department, however, there is a widening internal debate about whether the prison is hindering the larger U.S. effort to combat Islamic extremism worldwide.
"From a public diplomacy standpoint, most people want to [close] it," said one senior Pentagon official involved in the debate.
But the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity, pointed out that no decision about the prison's future was imminent -- in part because no one had proposed a good alternative.
The prison is at a U.S. naval base built on land leased more than a century ago from Cuba. Although the facility is outside U.S. territory, the Supreme Court ruled last year that U.S. laws applied to it and to the detainees.
On Tuesday, Rumsfeld briefed Cabinet-level officials in what Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita described as an update on detainee operations. DiRita said he had not heard "serious debate" within the Pentagon about shutting Guantanamo down.
"We've raised the questions: 'If we didn't have a facility like Guantanamo, where would we be able to do this kind of interrogation?' " DiRita said. "We've raised those issues over time and have always come back to the conclusion that if it wasn't Guantanamo, it would have to look a lot like Guantanamo. I mean, we've put $300 million into that place."
Other officials think that the controversies -- including a recent Pentagon report detailing instances of desecration of the Koran by U.S. troops -- have developed into a significant diplomatic problem for the United States.
