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Rice Adviser in Germany Defends Guantanamo Prison

By Erik Kirschbaum
Reuters
October 12, 2006
 
BERLIN, Oct 12 (Reuters) - The Bush Administration is addressing complaints from its allies about its treatment of foreign captives held at Guantanamo Bay as terrorism suspects, the State Department's top legal adviser said on Thursday.
 
But John Bellinger said President George W. Bush's Administration is nevertheless convinced it has not violated the Geneva Conventions by holding the suspects as unlawful combatants under what critics have called inhumane conditions.
 
"The president has heard these concerns of the international community and is addressing them," Bellinger told a group of German leaders and journalists in Berlin.
 
Chancellor Angela Merkel and other German leaders have challenged the internment of terror suspects outside the jurisdiction of American courts and have called on Bush to shut down the Guantanamo detention camp on Cuba.
 
German-born Turk Murat Kurnaz, who was recently freed from the camp after nearly five years there, said it was a "place without laws" where prisoners were beaten and humiliated.
 
"We recognise for a country like the United States, that has always stood for the rule of law, it is a matter of serious concern when our allies make such allegations," Bellinger said. "We are trying to explain it better."
 
Bellinger said as a result he was spending a lot of time in Europe to better present the U.S. position because it was "in part our own fault that there are so many myths, inaccuracies and misconceptions" published in European media.
 
"We haven't done a good job getting out and talking to our friends and allies," he said. "As a result, we left the field open to others who say we 'are making laws up as we go along' or assume we are violating the Geneva Convention.
 
"It's not true and we've been trying to rectify that in dialogue with our allies, especially in Europe," said Bellinger, the top legal adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
 
He offered no suggestions on how they address specific European concerns that inmates were being tortured and abused.
 
However, he acknowledged that mistakes had been made.
 
Bellinger said the problems were partly a question of language, beginning with the U.S. term "global war on terror", which he said does not sit well with Europeans. They prefer to call it a "fight" or "struggle" rather than war.
 
He said the U.S. and other countries had lacked a legal framework to prosecute terror suspects who attacked the United States from thousands of miles away but since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks have set up a more robust legal framework to do so.
 
"There's been an enormous evolution in our laws, policies and procedures," he said. "There was no book on the shelf before 9/11. We have had to adapt and evolve.

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