Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Houston Chronicle
February 9, 2008 Commander hopes changes will reduce number of attacks on guards
By Andrew O. Selsky, Associated Press
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, CUBA — Seeking to ease conditions for angry and frustrated Guantanamo detainees, the commander of the prison camps has instituted language classes, a literacy program and wants to open communal areas for men held in isolation 22 hours a day.
In an interview, Army Col. Bruce Vargo, commander of the military's Joint Detention Group at Guantanamo, said he hopes the changes at Guantanamo, where 275 men suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban are held, will lead to fewer attacks on guards.
The makeover contrasts with the situation at this isolated base in 2006, when commanders hardened the detention camps in the wake of a guard-prisoner clash and suicides of three detainees.
"Make no bones about it, these are very dangerous men," Vargo said. "But at the same time, you have to provide them with some type of out."
Attorneys for detainees say the assaults are partly triggered by frustration among men who, more often than not, were captured far from any battlefield and have been locked up for as many as six years with no real chance to confront accusations that they are enemy combatants.
David Remes, a Washington attorney who represents 16 Guantanamo detainees, said the military should recognize it must improve its treatment of detainees.
There is now TV night for some of the best-behaved detainees.
Language courses have begun in English, Arabic and Pashto, Vargo said.
Vargo has mock-ups of modifications that will allow detainees to use communal areas. He wants to keep guards separate from the detainees but still enable them to check on the prisoners to prevent suicides.
February 9, 2008 Commander hopes changes will reduce number of attacks on guards
By Andrew O. Selsky, Associated Press
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, CUBA — Seeking to ease conditions for angry and frustrated Guantanamo detainees, the commander of the prison camps has instituted language classes, a literacy program and wants to open communal areas for men held in isolation 22 hours a day.
In an interview, Army Col. Bruce Vargo, commander of the military's Joint Detention Group at Guantanamo, said he hopes the changes at Guantanamo, where 275 men suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban are held, will lead to fewer attacks on guards.
The makeover contrasts with the situation at this isolated base in 2006, when commanders hardened the detention camps in the wake of a guard-prisoner clash and suicides of three detainees.
"Make no bones about it, these are very dangerous men," Vargo said. "But at the same time, you have to provide them with some type of out."
Attorneys for detainees say the assaults are partly triggered by frustration among men who, more often than not, were captured far from any battlefield and have been locked up for as many as six years with no real chance to confront accusations that they are enemy combatants.
David Remes, a Washington attorney who represents 16 Guantanamo detainees, said the military should recognize it must improve its treatment of detainees.
There is now TV night for some of the best-behaved detainees.
Language courses have begun in English, Arabic and Pashto, Vargo said.
Vargo has mock-ups of modifications that will allow detainees to use communal areas. He wants to keep guards separate from the detainees but still enable them to check on the prisoners to prevent suicides.