Guantanamo out for Iraqi POWs
Robert Burns
Associated Press
Apr. 26, 2003 12:00 AM

WASHINGTON - No Iraqi prisoners will be sent to the Guantanamo Bay detention center, which holds Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners from Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Friday.

At a Pentagon news conference, Rumsfeld said administration lawyers had not yet decided whether any of the dozen or so senior Iraqi officials being held by the allies will face criminal charges. Some could be tried in U.S., international or Iraqi courts, although he said a U.S. venue is "not our first choice." That decision is President Bush's, he said.

Regardless of how they and other prisoners are handled, Rumsfeld said none will go to the Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where 660 people from 42 countries are being held on suspicion of links to the al-Qaida terrorist network or the ousted Afghan Taliban regime.

Asked why Guantanamo Bay would not be suitable for Iraqi prisoners, Rumsfeld suggested that their situation is different because they are not part of a global terrorist network.

"The people we've got in Iraq are in large measure Iraqi people who belong in Iraq," he said. "To the extent they have to be held for some period of time, it's a lot more convenient to hold them in Iraqi prisons than it is to build prisons in Guantanamo and transport them down there."

Meanwhile, the Pentagon announced two more deaths, raising to 134 the number of Americans killed since the war began.

Army Sgt. Troy David Jenkins, 25, of Ridgecrest, Calif., died of wounds suffered in an explosion April 19. The Pentagon said he died at a hospital in Germany.

The Pentagon said Army Spc. Roy Russell Buckley, 24, of Portage, Ind., was killed April 22 in Iraq. Buckley had been traveling in a convoy when he was discovered lying with serious injuries on the side of the road. Medical aid was summoned and he was pronounced dead. The matter is being investigated.

Rumsfeld said allied forces in Iraq are holding about 7,000 people. He said officials are making it a priority to release any prisoners deemed to hold little value for interrogators seeking information about Iraq's weapons programs, its prisoner-of-war records or the whereabouts of deposed President Saddam Hussein.

A couple of hundred Iraqi prisoners are being released each day, he said.

Rumsfeld also accused Iran of being behind a Shiite movement to form a non-democratic Islamic government in Iraq.

"There's no question but that the government of Iran has encouraged people to go into (Iraq), and they have people in the country attempting to influence the country," Rumsfeld said.

Most Iraqis, he said, want the U.S. and coalition forces to help restore order and such basic services as water, food and electricity. "They want the coalition to help to provide stability and security, as Iraqis form an interim authority and eventually choose a free Iraqi government," Rumsfeld said. "And then they will want us to leave, to be sure. And that's what we would want as well."

Rumsfeld said about 135,000 U.S. troops still are in Iraq, along with about 23,000 from allied nations. That is somewhat higher than during the major combat phase of the war, when the U.S. total was about 120,000. U.S. air and sea forces in the Persian Gulf region have begun heading home, but more ground forces have gone into Iraq for the mission of stabilizing the country.

Gen. Richard Myers, Joint Chiefs chairman, corrected a statement he made Monday that an Iraqi girl had handed an explosive device to U.S. soldiers with the intent to injure them. Myers said subsequent information showed that the girl meant no harm.

Please visit these sites which document David Dorn a liar and hate monger who makes up viscous lies about people he doesn't like:

Dorn Agency
Dorn Agency
Dorn Insurance
Dorn Insurance
Dorn Insuranse
Dorn Insuranse
David Dorn Agency
David Dorn Agency
David Dorn Hate Monger
David Dorn Government Snitch?