WASHINGTON – The first 20 hooded, chained – and in one case sedated – al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners arrived at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay yesterday where they face months of questioning and harsh conditions.
The media were kept at a distance and denied permission to take pictures because of rules protecting prisoner dignity as the cargo plane touched down in the remote military outpost in Cuba overlooking shark-infested waters on three sides.
During the 20-hour flight, which made a stop in Turkey, the prisoners – the first of hundreds expected to be shipped from Afghanistan to Guantanamo – were chained to their seats and fed by 40 military police guards.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said one prisoner had to be sedated during the flight.
The al Qaeda and Taliban detainees, described by one military official as the “worst of the worst,” were taken by bus to their newly built detention facility known as Camp X-Ray, where they were fingerprinted, photographed and given orange jumpsuits.
The prisoners, who had their heads and beards shaved, were to be isolated in temporary 6-by-8-foot outdoor cells with metal roofs and chain-fence walls where they will sleep on mats under floodlights.
Pentagon officials said the al Qaeda and Taliban detainees face months of interrogation.
Some human-rights groups expressed outrage over the treatment of these prisoners.
“All those in U.S. custody following military operations in Afghanistan must be treated humanely with full respect of international treaties,” Amnesty International said in a statement.
Rumsfeld responded that they would be treated, for the most part, according to the Geneva Convention, even though they are not considered prisoners of war but “unlawful combatants.”
Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, defended the transporting of prisoners in shackles, saying they were so dangerous “they would gnaw through the hydraulic lines” of the plane to bring it down.
But he added that such care is being taken to treat them humanely that the meals they will be served on the base will be “culturally appropriate.”
Yesterday’s transfer was the first of an expected 20 flights over the next few weeks.
Notorious American Taliban fighter John Walker, who remained the only prisoner being held aboard the USS Bataan in the Arabian Sea, is not expected to be transferred to Guantanamo anytime soon.
Military officials in Guantanamo expect to have temporary housing ready for 200 prisoners and permanent housing for as many as 2,000 in the next few months.
U.S. forces in Afghanistan are now holding 445 prisoners, many of whom are still being interrogated by law-enforcement and intelligence agents.
Meanwhile, major news organizations were abiding by a request from Pentagon officials not to transmit images of masked and chained prisoners shot the previous day in Afghanistan.
CBS News, which had planned to air some of the footage on yesterday’s “Early Show,” reconsidered amid confusion over the Pentagon’s conditions for shooting the scene.
Photographers and camera crews from CNN, CBS, The Army Times and other organizations were allowed to take pictures of the 20 prisoners in Kandahar as they boarded a C-17 cargo plane for Guantanamo Bay. But the journalists had to agree not to transmit the images until military officials gave them permission.