Defense Secretary Asks Congress to Close Gitmo

Robert Gates urged Congress on Thursday to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, acknowledging that the international community was likely to doubt the credibility of tribunals held there: “My own view is that because of things that happened earlier at Guantanamo there is a taint about it.”

BBC:

The US has started the military trials of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay.

Mr Gates told a House of Representatives committee that “my own view is that because of things that happened earlier at Guantanamo there is a taint about it.”

He said he wanted the Guantanamo prison to be closed and the trials moved to the US “because I felt that no matter how transparent, no matter how open the trials, if they took place in Guantanamo, in the international community they would lack credibility.”

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Defense Secretary Robert Gates in a file photo.