Outside view: Pushed into darkness

The following editorial appeared Friday in The Olympian of Olympia.

In an unbelievable move, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has expelled all reporters and a photographer from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It’s a transparent attempt to muzzle the press in the wake of … three suicides at the prison, where terrorist suspects are held indefinitely and without charges.

The American public should be outraged.

A Pentagon press officer, J.D. Gordon, tried to put a positive spin on this First Amendment outrage. He told Editor & Publisher magazine that the suicides of the three detainees required heavier security and the removal of the media. Instead of allowing other reporters and photographers access to the military installation, Rumsfeld’s answer was to remove the three reporters and single photographer already at Guantanamo.

The American public is fed up with the secrecy surrounding the military prison and its inmates. What this situation calls for is the light of day, not the darkness of a press blackout.

We are not defending terrorists here. We are defending the American way of justice for all.

Charlotte Observer Editor Rick Thames objected to the ouster of his reporter. “The Pentagon appears to have panicked when it discovered it couldn’t manipulate a first-class reporter, so it shoved him and all other press out,” Thames said. “(The reporter’s) stories helped the world understand the actual circumstances our soldiers faced in managing a very difficult situation. It’s unfortunate that the military couldn’t see the value of that.”

This is particularly galling because President Bush challenged reporters to go to Guantanamo themselves to see how the prisoners there are treated. But then he pulled the rug out from under them.

It is a familiar, dishonest pattern with the Bush administration. It wants us to trust that the prisoners are terrorists, that they are being treated according to international law and that they would be dangerous if let go. But the administration never allows anyone to verify its claims because President Bush believes he has the right to circumvent our long history of checks and balances.

Shame on him.

Let us remember that only 10 – that’s right, 10 – of the more than 465 prisoners at Guantanamo have even been charged as alleged war criminals before President Bush’s military commissions. And that 465 likely doesn’t take into account the dozens and dozens who have been sent back home with no charges during the past four years.

And now journalists are not allowed to report that important international story from the prison in southwest Cuba.

How shameful.

In one final attempt to justify the indefensible, Gordon said pressure from other news media to be allowed onto the base – not the Observer stories – caused the reporters’ ouster.

Yeah, right.

The American public should demand that the Pentagon allow full press access to the Guantanamo prison.