Split

Is The Administration split over whether to close Guantanamo Bay? Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter (CA), Chairman of the House Arms Committee, thinks so:

The military detention camp for terrorism suspects has been criticized as a modern "gulag" by Amnesty International and it has become a hated symbol for many Muslims.

"I think they're divided. I think ... some members of the White House have come to the conclusion that the legend is different than the fact," said Hunter, a California Republican.

"And when that's the case, you go with the legend that somehow Guantanamo has been a place of abuse. And you close it down and you shorten the stories, you shorten the heated debate and you get if off the table and you move on," he said.

A classified log detailing the interrogation of Mohammad al-Kahtani, suspected to have been an intended Sept. 11, 2001, hijacker, was published by Time magazine on Sunday and gave new details of interrogation methods at the camp.

The recent report by Time Magazine of logged interrogation of al-Kahtani has re-stoked the criticism of Guantanmo:

The 84-page logbook obtained by Time and authenticated by Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita is the "kind of document that was never meant to leave Gitmo," a senior Pentagon official told the magazine.

According to the logbook, which covers al-Qahtani's interrogations from November 2002 to January 2003, the Time article reports that daily interviews began at 4 a.m. and sometimes continued until midnight.

The interrogation techniques included refusing al-Qahtani a bathroom break and forcing him to urinate in his pants.

"It's not appropriate," said Sen. Chuck Hagel on CNN's "Late Edition." "It's not at all within the standards of who we are as a civilized people, what our laws are. "If in fact we are treating prisoners this way, it's not only wrong, it's dangerous and very dumb and very shortsighted," the Nebraska Republican said. "This is not how you win the people of the world over to our side, especially the Muslim world."

During the period covered by the logbook, Time reported, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved 16 additional interrogation techniques for use on certain detainees.

Afterward, interrogators began their sessions with al-Qahtani at midnight and awakened him with dripping water or Christina Aguilera music if he dozed off, the magazine article reported.

[It should be noted that Christina Aguilera music is not, by itself, an extremely torturous event. There are much more painful musicians to be forced to listen to.]

So who wants to close Guantanamo, and why? It's clear from Hunter's response above that to him it is a dismissable, if unfortunate, turn of events. He seems oddly passive about it. The "Legend" of Guantanamo is meaningless to him, as apparently are the possibilities that these abuses could have occurred in any significant way. For him, it has simply turned into negative PR that must be contained. We already know that Cheney has no interest in considering the closure of Guantanamo any time soon, and, likely, he will dictate what happens to it barring greater circumstance.

What strikes me about all of this is how little compassion the Republicans seem to have when considering these issues. It truly seems as though, for them, it is little more than a political mess that must be swept away.

Shame.