NYT: Pentagon Seeks to Transfer More Detainees From Base in Cuba

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/11/politics/11detain.html?ei=5094&en=c61de00680c3b72e&hp=&ex=1110517200&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&position=

The Pentagon is seeking to enlist help from the State Department and other agencies in a plan to cut by more than half the population at its detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in part by transferring hundreds of suspected terrorists to prisons in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Yemen, according to senior administration officials.

The transfers would be similar to the renditions, or transfers of captives to other countries, carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency, but are subject to stricter approval within the government, and face potential opposition from the C.I.A. as well as the State and Justice Departments, the officials said.

Administration officials say those agencies have resisted some previous handovers, out of concern that transferring the prisoners to foreign governments could harm American security or subject the prisoners to mistreatment.

A Feb. 5 memorandum from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld calls for broader interagency support for the plan, starting with efforts to work out a significant transfer of prisoners to Afghanistan, the officials said. The proposal is part of a Pentagon effort to cut a Guantánamo population that stands at about 540 detainees by releasing some outright and by transferring others for continued detention elsewhere.

The proposal comes as the Bush administration reviews the future of the naval base at Guantánamo as a detention center, after court decisions and shifts in public opinion have raised legal and political questions about the use of the facility.