|
The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
|
February 6th,
2008 - AP Confirms Secret Camp Inside Gitmo |
|
AP Confirms Secret Camp Inside
Gitmo By Andrew O. Selsky Associated Press February 6, 2008 Guantanamo Bay Naval Base,
Cuba - Somewhere amid the cactus-studded hills on this sprawling Navy base,
separate from the cells where hundreds of men suspected of links to al-Qaida
and the Taliban have been locked up for years, is a place even more closely guarded
- a jailhouse so protected that its very location is top secret. For the first time, the top
commander of detention operations at Guantanamo has confirmed the existence
of the mysterious Camp 7. In an interview with The Associated Press, Rear
Adm. Mark Buzby also provided a few details about the maximum-security
lockup. Guantanamo commanders said
Camp 7 is for key alleged al-Qaida members, who must be kept apart from other
prisoners to prevent them from retaliating against long-term detainees who have
talked to interrogators. They also want the location kept secret for fear of
terrorist attack. Many operations have been
classified since the detention center opened in January 2002 in the wake of
the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. More than
four years passed before the military released even the names of detainees
held on this 45-square-mile base in southeast Cuba - and it did so only after
the AP filed a Freedom of Information Act request. Detainees have been held in
Camp Echo and Camps 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Journalists cleared by the military
have been allowed to tour some of these lockups, where 260 men are held, but
aren't allowed to speak to detainees. Some lawmakers and other VIPs have
passed through, and the International Red Cross has access, but doesn't
divulge details of visits with prisoners. Camp 7, where 15
"high-value detainees" are held, is so secret that its very
existence was not publicly known until it was mentioned in December by
attorneys for Majid Khan, a former Baltimore resident who allegedly plotted
to bomb gas stations in the United States. Previously, many observers
believed the 15 were being held in Camps 5 or 6, which are maximum-security
facilities. "Under the gag order
... we are prohibited from saying anything more about their camp,"
lawyer Gitanjali Gutierrez, who met with Khan in October, said Tuesday. Most
of the lawyers' notes and memos have been stamped "top secret" by
the government. Buzby told the AP he is
sharply limiting to a "very few" the number of people who know Camp
7's whereabouts. He described it as a maximum
security facility that was already built when President Bush announced in
September 2006 that 14 high-value terrorism suspects had been transferred
from CIA secret detention facilities to Guantanamo. An additional detainee,
Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, arrived last April. "They went straight
into that facility," Buzby said. Buzby, who heads all
military detention operations on Guantanamo, said he controls Camp 7, but
would not discuss whether the CIA might still be talking with the high-value
detainees. Paul Rester, the military's
chief interrogator at Guantanamo, told AP he has been interviewing one of the
Camp 7 detainees and that others may be interrogated, depending on
intelligence needs. But other key military
commanders on the base have been told to leave Camp 7 to others. "Not everybody, even
within the Joint Task Force, has access or even knowledge of where Camp 7
is," said Army Col. Bruce Vargo. As commander of the military's Joint
Detention Group at Guantanamo, Vargo is responsible for the camps holding 260
detainees. But not for Camp 7. Red Cross representatives
have visited Camp 7 and all the other detention facilities at Guantanamo,
confirmed Geoff Loane, head of the humanitarian organization's delegation in
Washington. He declined to give details. Buzby said the 15 are kept
isolated in part to protect other prisoners. "Detainees have told us a
lot of things about this group of people, and if there were potential for
retribution it would be a very, very dangerous situation," he said. For his part, Vargo said he
is preoccupied by the possibility of an al-Qaida attack on Guantanamo. "Although we are trying
to be open, security is paramount," he said. "I mean, if you can
fly a plane into the towers, you can attack Guantanamo if that's what you
choose to do. It's something I think about on a day-to-day basis." Vargo declined to discuss
whether the U.S. has received information that al-Qaida may be planning such
an attack. "We have intelligence reports, but I don't want to release
what we know for obvious reasons," he said. While some military
personnel have reportedly grumbled about being kept out of the loop, others
don't mind. Army Col. Larry James, whose
team of psychologists assists interrogators, said he does not want to know
where Camp 7 is. "I learned a long, long
time ago, if I'm going to be successful in the intel community, I'm
meticulously - in a very, very dedicated way - going to stay in my
lane," he said. "So if I don't have a specific need to know about
something, I don't want to know about it. I don't ask about it." © 2008 The Associated Press External link: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/5519397.html |