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By Carol Rosenberg. crosenberg@herald.com.
The Miami
Herald, May 2, 2002.
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - Days after opening a new prison compound,
the U.S. military brought 32 more al Qaeda and Taliban terror suspects here on
Wednesday, the first to arrive from Afghanistan in more than two months.
Two prisoners struggled against their guards and were hogtied.
One Camp X-Ray captive was sent last month to the United States, and another
recently came from Africa. But the first mass arrival of prisoners here since
Feb. 15 signaled continuing Pentagon commitment to the detention center that
could some day grow to hold 2,000 international terror suspects. And unlike the
covert weekend transfer of 300 prisoners out of Camp X-Ray, reporters were
allowed to watch the unloading operation from a C-17 Globemaster from Kandahar,
Afghanistan.
All of the prisoners were shackled hand and foot in their trademark orange
jumpsuits and had goggles to blind them and earmuffs to deafen them. As two of
the men wobbled off the 20-plus hour flight, U.S. Army infantrymen shoved them
flat on their stomachs and shifted their shackles from front to back before
putting them on buses.
Because all 32 were able to stumble or shuffle off the flight suggested the
captives had no serious wounds.
''We had a smooth efficient operation,'' said Marine Maj. James Bell,
spokesman for the prison project commander, Army Gen. Rick Baccus of the Rhode
Island National Guard.
Of the new soldiers, he said: "They rehearsed a lot.''
Dogs barked as the captives came off the plane and soldiers shouted orders
audible from about 200 yards away. Some captives appeared to be extremely
scrawny and slight in stature. Bell said he could not say whether the new
captives included children, but confirmed that there were no women or girls in
the group. ''I don't know ages,'' he said.
76 SPOTS AVAILABLE
The arrivals raised the detention center population to 332, meaning it can
now accept 76 more terror suspects at the new 408-cage facility called Camp
Delta. Contractors are building 204 more cells, which should be ready by June.
About 200 prisoners remain in U.S. military custody in Afghanistan or
Pakistan; it is not known if others are held elsewhere around the world.
Wednesday's mission was the second test in less than a week for the new Army
commander. Over the weekend, Baccus said, his troops transferred the 300
prisoners from Camp X-Ray to Camp Delta, on a seafront setting where captives
get smaller cells set up in a boxcar arrangement outfitted with stand-up flush
toilets and wash basins. Commanders kept the transfer secret throughout.
Officers had earlier allowed reporters to watch prisoner movements and see
them in their cells and hospital beds in a bid to illustrate what one commander
characterized as ''humane but not comfortable'' conditions for the men the
military considers potentially suicidal fanatics.
At least 33 nationalities are represented in the prison population,
described as enemy combatants by Bush administration policy that denies
prisoner-of-war status. There was no sign that delegates of the International
Committee for the Red Cross watched the arrivals. They had been witnesses at the
airfield on previous missions since the delegates first arrived Jan. 17, after
the first 110 captives were already interned here.
In the past, commanders have described some of the captives as lost souls
and severe psychiatric cases swept up in the holy war, or jihad, of Osama bin
Laden. They have said that some could be returned to their native countries,
while others could face U.S. tribunals set up by the Department of Defense.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld chose Guantánamo Bay as the site
for the prison compound, declaring it ''the least worst place'' on Dec. 27.
Foreigners held here have no recourse to U.S. courts to resolve their status.
But U.S. citizens do.
SUSPECT FROM ZAMBIA
The Pentagon evacuated one prisoner, Yasser Hamdi, 22, on April 5 after FBI
agents verified his claim that he was born in Baton Rouge, La., to Saudi
parents.
With Hamdi's departure, the number of prisoners dropped to 299 last month.
Then another detainee was secretly whisked onto the base on April 20, unseen by
media covering the project. The Associated Press later reported from Washington
that he was an al Qaeda suspect turned over by authorities in the central
African country of Zambia.
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