Middle East Digest: May 20, 2008Bureau of Public Affairs The Middle East Digest provides text and audio from the Daily Press Briefing. For the full briefings, please visit http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/. From the Daily Press Briefing of May 20, 2008: QUESTION: On Guantanamo, some questions. The House hears for the first time from the first ever released Guantanamo – for the first time in Congress, that is – a German-Turkish individual named Murat. That’s going to be at 2 p.m. He alleges torture and there’s been other allegations of torture at the facility. How do you respond against such accusations and the fact that those are against the U.S. Constitution? MR. MCCORMACK: Well, you’ve heard from the President of the United States as well as other cabinet officials on these questions, and I can’t put it any more plainly than the President of the United States has put it, and he says the United States does not torture. QUESTION: And how do you convince world opinion that that is not taking place and the fact that everyone in Guantanamo is a suspect of terrorism? MR. MCCORMACK: Well, we try to – and you can talk to my colleagues over at the Department of Defense who are responsible for the facility as well as for the judicial procedures that are ongoing there. And very basically, we try to have as open and transparent a process as we possibly can. The President, back in September 2006 when he talked about those high-value detainees that we were going to ship to Guantanamo and to put on trial – it is evidence, it’s just one data point in terms of looking at our efforts to be as transparent as we possibly can in dealing with people whom we believe we are quite dangerous not only to citizens of the United States but to citizens of other countries. We have seen, for example, you know, a detainee that was released ended up as a suicide bomber. So these are – it should be a lesson to people who look at Guantanamo and how we deal with these people that we are dealing with some very dangerous individuals. |
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