Colin Powell says Guantanamo should

Reuters

Monday June 11, 2007

Former U.S. Secretary of State
Colin Powell said on Sunday the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay
for foreign terrorism suspects should be immediately closed and its inmates
moved to the United States.

 

Powell, who in a 2003 speech to the U.N. Security Council made the case
for war against Iraq for possessing weapons of mass destruction that were
never found, said the controversial prison in Cuba had become a "major
problem" for the United States' image abroad and done more harm than
good.

"Guantanamo has become a major, major problem ... in the way the
world perceives America and if it were up to me I would close Guantanamo
not tomorrow but this afternoon ... and I would not let any of those people
go. I would simply move them to the United States and put them into our
federal legal system," Powell told NBC's Meet the Press.

"Essentially, we have shaken the belief the world had in America's
justice system by keeping a place like Guantanamo open and creating things
like the military commission. We don't need it and it is causing us far
more damage than any good we get for it," he added.

The United States is holding about 380 foreign terrorism suspects at
Guantanamo.

Rights groups and foreign governments have called for the prison to be
closed, saying holding prisoners there for years without trial violated
legal standards. But Washington says the prison is legal and necessary
to hold dangerous individuals.

"I would get rid of Guantanamo and the military commission system
and use established procedures in federal law," Powell said, saying
some leaders around the world were using Guantanamo to hide their own
misdeeds.

"It's a more equitable way, and more understandable in constitutional
terms," he added.