Posted on 02/17/2006 7:17:53 PM PST by Aussie Dasher
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld blasted UN Secretary General Kofi Annan Friday as "just flat wrong" in calling for the closure of the military-run detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"I know Kofi Annan and there are a lot of things you can agree with him on, but he's just flat wrong," Mr Rumsfeld told an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations.
"We shouldn't close Guantanamo," he said. "We have several hundred terrorists, bad people, people if they went back out on the field would try to kill Americans."
"To close that place, and pretend there's no problem, just isn't realistic," he said.
A report by the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva made public this week said inmates at the detention centre had been abused and that it should be closed.
The UN human rights experts who wrote the report were invited to go to Guantanamo but declined after US authorities said they would not be permitted to interview the inmates.
But Mr Rumsfeld angrily denounced Mr Annan and the authors of the report for calling for its closure without having been there.
"He hasn't been to Guantanamo Bay," he said of Mr Annan, adding that hundreds of others had visited, including US lawmakers, journalists, foreigners and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
"That place is being run as well as any detention centre can be run," he said.
About 500 war-on-terror detainees are held at the maximum security prison which is located on a hard-to-reach US naval base in Cuba.
"Every once in a while someone pops up and gets some press for saying, 'Oh, let's close Guantanamo Bay.' Well if someone has a better idea, I'd like to hear it," Mr Rumsfeld said.
"We didn't come up with a rule that throughout history combatants are kept off the battlefield so they can't go back and do it again," he said.
He said 15 detainees who were released from Guantanamo had gone back to the battlefield.
"The idea you could just open the gates and say, 'Gee, fellas, you're all just wonderful,' is just not realistic," he said.
UN is usually wrong. BTW why is the criminal theif Kofi Annan STILL in charge of that den of thieves???
Rummy should suggest OKAY ANNAN i make a deal with you we shut up Camp Gutnatiaro you take prisoners how you like that LOLOL!
Cat got your tongue dude
Kofi can just KISS MY ARSE!
OK...name one.
The UN is just about,the most useless organization on the planet. Get rid of it!
Why waste perfectly good tar and feathers on those idiots? Hose them down with raw sewage then have them escorted to a ship with only one working bathroom, cold water only.
Well said! Carried unanimously!
We have plenty of room.
In a perfect world, Kofi Annan along with most of the UN would be residents of Guantanamo themselves.
UN Wrong On Guantanamo.
You can take out Guantanamo and replace it with anything and the statement will still be true.
That wouldn't require a perfect world. Only one that was half sane.
Remind me again...why IS THERE a UN??
One working bathroom? Not even that! There was a portion of the ship called the "poop deck" for a reason. :-)
Buggered if I know!
The sooner we get a League of Free Nations, the better.
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