Guantanamo Bay should be closed, says US army boss

The chief of the US military said the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison camp should be closed as soon as possible because negative publicity about the treatment of terror suspects had been “pretty damaging” to America’s image.

“I’d like to see it shut down,” Admiral Mike Mullen said in an interview with three reporters who toured the Cuba detention centre with him on his first visit since becoming chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff in October.

Friday marked the sixth anniversary of the prison’s opening in January 2002.

Adm Mullen stressed that a closure decision was not his to make and that he understood there were numerous complex legal questions the administration believed would have to be settled first, such as where to move prisoners.

The admiral also noted that some of Guantanamo Bay’s prisoners were deemed high security threats.

During a tour of Camp Six, a high-security facility holding about 100 prisoners, Adm Mullen got a first-hand look at some of the cells and one prisoner glared at him through his narrow window as US officers explained how they maintained almost constant watch over each prisoner.

Adm Mullen, whose previous visit was in December 2005 as head of the US Navy, noted that President George Bush and defence secretary Robert Gates have also spoken publicly in favour of closing the prison. But he said he was unaware of any active discussion in the administration about how to do it.

Asked why he thought Guantanamo Bay, commonly dubbed Gitmo, should be closed, and the prisoners perhaps moved to US soil, Adm Mullen said: “More than anything else it’s been the image – how Gitmo has become around the world, in terms of representing the US.”

Critics have charged that detainees have been mistreated in some cases and that the legal conditions of their detentions are not consistent with the rule of law.

“I believe that from the standpoint of how it reflects on us that it’s been pretty damaging,” said Adm Mullen, speaking in a small boat that ferried him to and from the detention facilities across a glistening bay.

He said he was encouraged to hear that the Guantanamo population had shrunk to 277 – at one time it exceeded 600.

Hundreds have been returned to their home countries but the US says some are such serious security threats that they cannot be released for the foreseeable future.

Only four are currently facing military trials after being formally charged with crimes.

Adm Mullen’s predecessor, retired Air Force general Richard Myers, is a defendant in a lawsuit by four British men who say they were systematically tortured throughout their two years of detention at the remote outpost. On Friday a US appeal court in Washington ruled against the four.

It was six years ago that Guantanamo Bay received its first prisoners, suspected terrorists picked up on the battlefields of Afghanistan as the Taliban government was being ousted from power.

The facility is on land leased from the Cuban government under terms of a long-term deal that predates the rule of President Fidel Castro. It is commanded by US Navy Rear Admiral Mark Buzby.

After the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001, the Bush administration considered Guantanamo Bay a suitable place to hold men suspected of links to the Taliban and al Qaida, contending that US laws did not apply there because Guantanamo was not part of the US.