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Senators Visit Guantanamo Bay Prison

By ANDREW SELSKY
Associated Press
September 11, 2006

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Flying home after visiting the Guantanamo Bay detention center, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Sunday he expects bipartisan support for putting top captured al-Qaida figures on trial before military commissions and for guidelines on how they should be treated.

Frist, a Republican from Tennessee, visited the detention center in eastern Cuba, which holds some 460 detainees, including 14 top alleged al-Qaida figures recently transferred from CIA custody. Among them is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Frist said his visit with fellow Republicans Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, was especially poignant coming one day short of the fifth anniversary of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

"Being there today with the recognition that 14 individuals were there who in all likelihood contributed to the 9/11 events ... led me to think how critical it is that we do define the appropriate criteria to make sure we get information to prevent such a tragedy from ever occurring again," Frist said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

The senators didn't see the 14 new detainees and instead visited Guantanamo to learn of interrogation techniques, Frist said.

"In my mind, the detainees are being treated in a safe and humane way," he said.

On Wednesday, President Bush said he was asking Congress to pass administration-drafted legislation to authorize military commissions to try terror suspects. In June, the Supreme Court halted the military commissions, saying they lacked authority from Congress.

The administration-drafted legislation would define standards of prisoner treatment and omit some rights common in military and civil courts, such as a defendant's right to see all the evidence against him. It would also permit the use of coerced testimony at the judge's discretion.

Frist has placed the White House proposal on the Senate calendar but indicated there would be much discussion on whatever legislation the Senate ultimately votes on.

"By midweek we'll decide how to bring it before the U.S. Senate," he told the AP from aboard a plane carrying him from Guantanamo.

"There will be 20 to 25 criteria that will be put forward in the legislation to define what humane treatment is," Frist added. "We need to get very clear and specific definitions in our legislation."

He said a new Army manual that bans beating prisoners, sexually humiliating them, threatening them with dogs, and using "water boarding" -- which simulates drowning -- would be at least one basis the Senate will likely use.

Frist said he expects bipartisan support as Congress sets guidelines on how to handle and try captured suspected terrorists.

"I believe that both Democrats and Republicans realize that we need to equip our government, our law enforcement and intelligence with the tools necessary to bring the terrorists to justice," he said.

However, even some Republicans support alternative legislation, and several of the military's top lawyers worry that Bush's plan could violate treaty obligations and deprive U.S. troops of rights if they are captured.

Ten Guantanamo detainees have been charged with crimes so far. None of the 14 top figures transferred to Guantanamo from CIA custody has been charged yet.

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