Chair Of Joint Chiefs Wants To Close Gitmo

The Bush administration thought they were going to do an end run around U.S. and international law, by using the Guantanamo Bay Naval base as a place to stash prisoners from the Afghani and Iraqi wars. Located on the tip of Cuba, it is accessible only with permission of the U.S. military.

Bush and Cheney figured that the prisoners there would be hidden from the world. That way they could deny these prisoners any legal rights, and even cut them off from defense lawyers. They could torture and humiliate the prisoners and no one would know.

But it hasn't worked out that way. The torture and humiliation being used was public knowledge from the start. Further, the denial of basic human and legal rights has made the Bush administration a pariah among civilized nations. Every day that the illegal Guantanamo prisons remain open makes them look worse.

None of this is secret, even though the Bush administration has tried to "spin" it to make themselves not look so bad. But the fact is that they know what a blunder it has been. Sec. Gates has already said Guantanamo needs to be closed. Now he has company.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States military, Admiral Mike Mullen, has made it known that he would also like to see Guantanamo closed. He made this known to reporters on Sunday. Mullen said, "I'd like to see it shut down. I believe that from the standpoint of how it reflects on us that it's been pretty damaging."

The problem now is they don't know what to do with the prisoners. If they move them to the mainland United States, they're going to have to give them access to the courts here. That would be a disaster since they don't really have any evidence against them. If they did, they would have convicted them of something years ago.

That's one reason for the torture. They were hoping to be able to use torture confessions in the military tribunals. There's no way torture confessions can be used in a U.S. court.

If they just release them, that would be an admission that they shouldn't have imprisoned and tortured them in the first place. So by trying to avoid the law by using Guantanamo, the Bush administration has just created a mess for themselves -- one that they don't know how to get out of.

And each day it makes the United States look worse.