WSJ: Gitmo’s really pretty nice
Wall Street Journal - January 13, 2007
The Gitmo High Life By ROBERT L. POLLOCK
For sheer irony it’s hard to beat this week’s spectacle of Cindy
Sheehan protesting the U.S. detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay –
from inside the prison that is Cuba itself. It’s not uncommon for
asylum-seeking Cubans to brave minefields and shark-infested waters
to enter the U.S. naval base, which five years ago this week also
became home to many top figures from al Qaeda and the Taliban.
That anniversary has brought forth predictable demands that
Guantanamo be closed from the self-styled human rights activists at
Amnesty International and other groups. But the world needs a place
to hold al Qaeda terrorists, who continue to strike in Europe, Iraq
and Afghanistan — even if they have failed to hit the United States
since 2001. And after visiting Guantanamo just before Christmas, it
was easy to understand why Belgian Police official Alain Grignard
(who came last year with a delegation from the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe) was moved to declare it “a model
prison, where people are better treated than in Belgian prisons.”
This is no less true of Camp Five, Gitmo’s maximum security facility
that houses its most dangerous detainees. Modern and clean, it looks
just like a U.S. jail. Meals (I ate the same lunch the detainees did
that day) are high in caloric content, if not exactly gourmet. The
average detainee has gained 18 pounds. And in the interrogation room
it’s the Americans who may have to suffer long hours in straight-back
chairs, while the detainees — I kid you not — get a La-Z-Boy. I was
shown a Syrian under interrogation via closed circuit television. His
questioners were two pleasant-looking young women. He was smiling.
I’m not under the impression that these sessions are always fun and
games. But detainees in Defense Department custody are treated
according to the restrictive rules of the Army Field Manual, which
bans all forms of coercive interrogation. I double checked with the
camp’s lead interrogator: other government agencies — read CIA and
FBI — have to follow those rules too. Not only does that mean no
“torture” is going on. Your average good-cop bad-cop routine isn’t
allowed. Cooperative detainees get rewards like movies. “Harry
Potter” is one of their favorites.
When it comes to medical care, almost no expense is spared — as I
discovered after spotting an overweight man lounging in the rec yard
of Camp Five. “Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?” I inquired (he was some
distance away). “No, that’s Paracha,” came the somewhat exasperated
reply.
Saifullah Paracha is a Pakistani businessman and media owner who
claims two meetings with Osama bin Laden were purely for journalistic
interest. He is believed to be an important figure in the case
against Majid Khan, one of the 14 “high value” detainees recently
transferred to Gitmo from CIA custody. Last year Mr. Paracha’s son
Uzair was sentenced to 30 years in a U.S. prison for aiding an al
Qaeda operative in a plot to bomb U.S. targets.
Maybe terrorism is stressful work. But whatever the reason, the elder
Paracha also suffers from heart disease. So late last year — at an
expense of some $400,000 — the U.S. government flew down doctors and
equipment to perform cardiac catheterization. Mr. Paracha’s response
was to refuse treatment and file a petition in U.S. federal court for
transfer to a hospital in the U.S. or Pakistan. At least his lawyers
were frank about their cynical motives: “His death in U.S. captivity
would be a blow to American prestige.”
The medical care at Guantanamo seems state of the art. All detainees
over 50 are offered colonoscopies; at least 16 have been performed.
Gitmo’s psychiatrist told me that fewer that 1% of detainees suffer
from mood disorders, a rate lower than that of the general
population. That would appear to undercut claims that indefinite
detention is itself a form of “mental torture.”
Guantanamo detainees don’t lack for legal representation. A list of
lead counsel released this week in response to a Freedom of
Information Act request reads like a who’s who of America’s most
prestigious law firms: Shearman and Sterling; Wilmer Cutler Pickering
Hale & Dorr; Covington & Burling; Hunton & Williams; Sullivan &
Cromwell; Debevoise & Plimpton; Cleary Gottlieb; and Blank Rome are
among the marquee names.
A senior U.S. official I spoke to speculates that this information
might cause something of scandal, since so much of the pro bono work
being done to tilt the playing field in favor of al Qaeda appears to
be subsidized by legal fees from the Fortune 500. “Corporate CEOs
seeing this should ask firms to choose between lucrative retainers
and representing terrorists” who deliberately target the U.S.
economy, he opined.
None of the above is meant to suggest Guantanamo is a fun place. What
terrorist detention facility would be? (Base commander Adm. Harry
Harris rejects the term “prison,” by the way: “We are not about
punishment; we are about keeping enemy combatants off the
battlefield.”) But the picture of Guantanamo usually painted by the
press and human-rights activists is a terribly distorted one.
Americans should rest assured that the men held there are probably
getting better treatment than they deserve.
Mr. Pollock is a member of The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board.