Guantánamo is currently our best option for protecting those targeted by terrorists, writes James C Kenny.
Amnesty International once described the detention centre in Guantánamo as "America's Gulag". With its inaccuracies and unwarranted assumptions, Amnesty Ireland's Seán Love's recent op-ed continues this line of thinking that undercuts Amnesty's credibility in raising awareness of human rights abuses around the world.
No one wants this detention facility to be open for business, least of all the US government. However, we cannot escape the fact that the global war on terrorism presents the international community with legal, moral and political challenges that existing international legal mechanisms cannot address. As the leader in the fight to make the world safe from terrorism - a fight we did not start, do not want, but cannot avoid - the US and its partners must address them as best we can, using existing US and international legal mechanisms and our own moral compass. It is easy to criticise us but difficult to offer solutions.
Consider two key issues: torture and renditions. Mr Love makes the outlandish claim that over 400 prisoners are "mostly held in chains, subject to ill-treatment, charged with no offences, denied access to justice". This could not be further from the truth. Over 10,000 combatants were captured in Afghanistan during the conflict there, of whom about 700 were deemed too dangerous to be detained there. They were taken to Guantánamo and over 250 of them were subsequently released after judicial review. A handful of them are now on the publicity circuit, marketing books and giving speeches outlining their "experiences" while detained. Are they telling the truth? How can anyone know given that they do not provide physical evidence of torture that holds up to scrutiny? We know from al-Qaeda's "Manchester Manual" that their members are taught to make claims of torture if captured. A well-rehearsed story can sound very believable.
Guantánamo reports often include photos of caged prisoners in orange jumpsuits. Those "cages" are from the first few months that Guantánamo was open; detainees now live in group housing and only the most dangerous are housed in isolation - and even then, not in cages, but standard detention cells. Photos from Abu Ghraib in Iraq have even been run with stories about Guantánamo, thus adding to the negative visual imagery.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has free and unfettered access to all detainees at Guantánamo, any time it wish to see them. Even though these detainees are not prisoners of war according to the Third Geneva Convention, they are afforded many - in some cases more - protections and rights than they would otherwise be accorded. The ICRC reports its concerns to us and we address them. ICRC rules prevent us from disclosing its reports or recommendations, but we believe it fair to say that both parties are satisfied with our co-operation concerning Guantánamo.
Mr Love says the detainees are denied access to justice. Again, this is false. If these men were classified under the Third Geneva Convention as prisoners of war, they would have absolutely no access to habeas corpus proceedings or lawyers in civil courts. Under the Geneva conventions, a prisoner of war may challenge his status as a combatant. Detainees at Guantánamo are entitled to do so before a combatant status review tribunal created for this purpose. Their detention status is reviewed at least once a year before an administrative review board. Detainees also have the ability, and many have done so, to pursue habeas corpus proceedings before US federal courts. Their access to legal review goes far beyond the Geneva Conventions.
US policy does not allow for torture of prisoners: not in law enforcement, intelligence or military operations. Cases where it occurred or is alleged to have occurred are investigated and people are prosecuted. Torture is the tragic exception, not the rule. To date, over 100 personnel have been sanctioned, even to include jail terms, for abuses of prisoners, including up to the rank of general.
Renditions are a different matter. They are and should be rare, but there are cases where they are warranted and they are certainly legal. They are vital to the war on terror. Without them, war crimes prosecutions would be badly hampered. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at The Hague has benefited from renditions, not least that of Slobodan Milosevic.
Mr Love notes that private aircraft suspected of transporting prisoners on behalf of the US government also landed at Shannon airport. The information he cites is drawn from prisoners who are trained to lie and from informal aircraft spotters who are not meticulous in their research. Many of these so-called "CIA flights" are private jets owned by businesses and charter companies with clients all over the world. Mr Love fails to mention whether any of the landings occurred in connection with so-called rendition flights, or if it was just the same aircraft, a day, a week, or months later (or earlier). No credible evidence exists to link Ireland with any of the so-called rendition flights. None.
In fact, the claim that the CIA has transported over 400 detainees through Europe is simply ludicrous. If anything, a large number of "CIA flights" indicates the highly valuable intelligence co-operation under way to win the war on terror. Thanks to this co-operation, the US and its partners have disrupted many terrorist plots, including attacks by hijacked aircraft on targets in the US in 2002 and 2003, attacks on urban targets in Britain in 2004, several attacks in Pakistan in 2003, an attack on Heathrow airport in 2003 using hijacked commercial airliners, and many others including attacks on Muslim countries. Irish lives may well have been saved as a result of these disruptions.
Guantánamo is currently our best option for protecting the citizens of the US and of other nations targeted by these terrorists. Some countries live in the hope that others will make the world a safer place but the US does not have this luxury. Until terrorists stop planning and carrying out abominable attacks, no responsible government would release them to go back and try again.
James C Kenny is US ambassador to Ireland