Prisoner treatment at Guantanamo Bay criticized

WASHINGTON – The International Committee of the Red Cross this week delivered the latest in a series of critical reports on the treatment of prisoners held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, officials at the State Department and Pentagon said Thursday.

In their report on Guantanamo, Red Cross officials “relay some of the concerns they have and some of the issues that they wanted to raise and discuss with us,”’ State Department spokesman Richard A. Boucher told reporters. Boucher refused to discuss details of the report.

But another State Department official, who said he had read the report, described it as “critical” of living conditions and interrogation techniques used on detainees at the base, where hundreds of suspected members of al Qaeda and the Taliban are being held without charge. Most were taken into custody during the 2001 war in Afghanistan.

The Red Cross does not publicly disclose its findings on prisoner treatment and conditions, in keeping with the agency’s practice of guaranteeing governments confidentiality in return for access.

The official said there appeared to be “a general lack of organization”’ in dealing with the U.S.-run prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq and Cuba, where thousands of people have been detained during the war on terror.

“Who is in control? Who is accountable? What are systemwide procedures? The point is, the ICRC still has unanswered questions,” the official said.