News-Info-Alerts

Re: Ex-POW MOC to Visit Guantanamo

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: December 06, 2003

"Arizonans to visit Cuba base

McCain, Flake to inspect Guantanamo

Billy House and Jon Kamman
The Arizona Republic

WASHINGTON - Sen. John McCain and U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake will make separate visits next week to the U.S. detention center where suspected terrorists are being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The trips by the two Republican lawmakers from Arizona come as the government, under increasing domestic and international pressure, moves toward releasing 100 or more prisoners and putting others on trial in military courts after as long as two years.

More than 600 detainees from 44 countries are being kept at the seaside naval base in eastern Cuba. Most are suspected of having links to the ousted Taliban regime in Afghanistan or to al-Qaida but have not been charged or allowed access to lawyers.

Flake will visit the prison Tuesday as part of a House International Relations Committee delegation. McCain will accompany Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on a one-day visit on Wednesday. Both are members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Graham, a lawyer and Air Force reservist, has been a member of the Judge Advocate General staff since serving on active duty in the 1980s.

McCain said Friday in Phoenix that he and Graham "want to assess the general situation" in view of planned releases and military tribunals. The trip has long been in their plans and was scheduled now because the Senate is in recess, he said.

Other members of Congress, including Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., have visited the camp since the first group of prisoners was flown to Guantanamo in January 2002.

But McCain's visit and what he says afterward could be a significant development, said Alistair Hodgett, a spokesman for Amnesty International here. His group is one of a number of human rights groups that have joined with lawyers in criticizing the Bush administration's treatment of Guantanamo prisoners.

"(McCain) obviously has personal, firsthand experience with what it is to be mistreated as a prisoner," Hodgett said. The former Navy pilot spent six years in a Vietnam prisoner of war camp under conditions far less humane than those described at Guantanamo.

Flake has a different reason for wanting to visit the base. His spokesman, Matt Specht, said he wants to examine the terrorist detention facilities "in light of recent security breaches."

President Bush has described the Guantanamo detainees as "illegal non-combatants picked up off the battlefield," and has promised that military prosecution would be "in line with international accords."

But groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have complained that the detainees have been isolated without due process and that proposed military tribunals would make the U.S. government prosecutor, judge and jury.

Reach the reporter at billy.house@arizonarepublic.com or 1-(202)-906-8136.

©2003 Arizona Republic"