'Come to Guantanamo,' Pentagon tells lawmakers

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon today invited more members of Congress to visit the Guantanamo jail for foreign terrorism suspects, saying criticism by some US lawmakers showed "a real ignorance of what's really going on".

"We invite more members to go down to Guantanamo and see what's going on, because what's going on down there is not the way it's being described by certain members of Congress," chief Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita told a briefing.

"And the way they are describing it is unfortunate, and in some places I believe those people will regret having made those kind of comments," Di Rita added.

The Pentagon said it holds approximately 520 men at the Guantanamo prison camp, which was opened in January 2002. Many have been held for more than three years. Only four have been charged. Most were detained in Afghanistan.

Di Rita's remarks came a day after a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in which some senators, including Republican Chairman Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, said congressional action may be needed to define detainees' legal rights.

Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the panel's top Democrat, said the prison at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was "an international embarrassment to our nation, to our ideals, and it remains a festering threat to our security."

Another senior Senate Democrat, Richard Durbin of Illinois, this week compared how US jailers treat Guantanamo prisoners to actions by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and former Cambodian leader Pol Pot. Some lawmakers and former President Jimmy Carter have called for the prison to be closed.

"Comments that are being made up on Capitol Hill about what's happening at Guantanamo reflect a real ignorance of what's really going on," Di Rita said.

The United States has classified the detainees as "enemy combatants" and denied them rights accorded to prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions.

Human rights activists have denounced the indefinite detention of prisoners at Guantanamo, and former detainees have said they were tortured. A Justice department official asserted on Wednesday that the US government can legally hold them men "in perpetuity."

An FBI memo has accused Pentagon personnel at Guantanamo of using "torture techniques," and the Pentagon recently detailed five cases in which US jailers "mishandled" the Koran.

The Pentagon has said that "US policy condemns and prohibits torture" and the United States "operates a safe, humane and professional detention operation at Guantanamo."

Di Rita said 11 US senators, 77 members of the House of Representatives and about 100 congressional staff members already have visited Guantanamo. He said the Pentagon would facilitate more visits by lawmakers "so that they would have a much better understanding of what's happening down there."

- REUTERS