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AP Confirms Secret Camp Inside Gitmo
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba -- Somewhere amid the cactus-studded hills
on this sprawling Navy base, separate from the cells where hundreds of men
suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban have been locked up for
years, is a place even more closely guarded _ a jailhouse so protected that
its very location is top secret.
For the first time, the top commander of detention operations at Guantanamo
has confirmed the existence of the mysterious Camp 7. In an interview with
The Associated Press, Rear Adm. Mark Buzby also provided a few details about
the maximum-security lockup.
Guantanamo commanders said Camp 7 is for key alleged al-Qaida members, who
must be kept apart from other prisoners to prevent them from retaliating
against long-term detainees who have talked to interrogators. They also want
the location kept secret for fear of terrorist attack.
Many operations have been classified since the detention center opened in
January 2002 in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon. More than four years passed before the military released
even the names of detainees held on this 45-square-mile base in southeast
Cuba _ and it did so only after the AP filed a Freedom of Information Act
request.
Detainees have been held in Camp Echo and Camps 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.
Journalists cleared by the military have been allowed to tour some of these
lockups, where 260 men are held, but aren't allowed to speak to detainees.
Some lawmakers and other VIPs have passed through, and the International Red
Cross has access, on the condition that no details about its visits with
detainees be made public.
But Camp 7, where 15 "high-value detainees" are held, is so secret that its
very existence was not publicly known until it was mentioned in December by
attorneys for Majid Khan, a former Baltimore resident who allegedly plotted
to bomb gas stations in the United States. Previously, many observers
believed the 15 were being held in Camps 5 or 6, which are maximum-security
facilities.
"Under the gag order ... we are prohibited from saying anything more about
their camp," lawyer Gitanjali Gutierrez, who met with Khan in October, said
Tuesday. Most of the lawyers' notes and memos have been stamped "top secret"
by the government.
Buzby told the AP he is sharply limiting to a "very few" the number of
people who know Camp 7's whereabouts.
He described it as a maximum security facility that was already built when
President Bush announced in September 2006 that 14 high-value terrorism
suspects had been transferred from CIA secret detention facilities to
Guantanamo. An additional detainee, Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, arrived last
April.
"They went straight into that facility," Buzby said.
Buzby, who heads all military detention operations on Guantanamo, said he
controls Camp 7, but would not discuss whether the CIA might still be
talking with the high-value detainees.
Paul Rester, the military's chief interrogator at Guantanamo, told AP he has
been interviewing one of the Camp 7 detainees and that others may be
interrogated, depending on intelligence needs.
But other key military commanders on the base have been told to leave Camp 7
to others.
"Not everybody, even within the Joint Task Force, has access or even
knowledge of where Camp 7 is," said Army Col. Bruce Vargo. As commander of
the military's Joint Detention Group at Guantanamo, Vargo is responsible for
the camps holding 260 detainees. But not for Camp 7.
Red Cross representatives have visited Camp 7 and all the other detention
facilities at Guantanamo, confirmed Geoff Loane, head of the humanitarian
organization's delegation in Washington. He declined to give details.
Buzby said the 15 are kept isolated in part to protect other prisoners.
"Detainees have told us a lot of things about this group of people, and if
there were potential for retribution it would be a very, very dangerous
situation," he said.
For his part, Vargo said he is preoccupied by the possibility of an al-Qaida
attack on Guantanamo.
"Although we are trying to be open, security is paramount," he said. "I
mean, if you can fly a plane into the towers, you can attack Guantanamo if
that's what you choose to do. It's something I think about on a day-to-day
basis."
Vargo declined to discuss whether the U.S. has received information that
al-Qaida may be planning such an attack. "We have intelligence reports, but
I don't want to release what we know for obvious reasons," he said.
While some military personnel have reportedly grumbled about being kept out
of the loop, others don't mind.
Army Col. Larry James, whose team of psychologists assists interrogators,
said he does not want to know where Camp 7 is.
"I learned a long, long time ago, if I'm going to be successful in the intel
community, I'm meticulously _ in a very, very dedicated way _ going to stay
in my lane," he said. "So if I don't have a specific need to know about
something, I don't want to know about it. I don't ask about it."
AP Confirms Secret Camp Inside Gitmo
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba -- Somewhere amid the cactus-studded hills
on this sprawling Navy base, separate from the cells where hundreds of men
suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban have been locked up for
years, is a place even more closely guarded _ a jailhouse so protected that
its very location is top secret.
For the first time, the top commander of detention operations at Guantanamo
has confirmed the existence of the mysterious Camp 7. In an interview with
The Associated Press, Rear Adm. Mark Buzby also provided a few details about
the maximum-security lockup.
Guantanamo commanders said Camp 7 is for key alleged al-Qaida members, who
must be kept apart from other prisoners to prevent them from retaliating
against long-term detainees who have talked to interrogators. They also want
the location kept secret for fear of terrorist attack.
Many operations have been classified since the detention center opened in
January 2002 in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon. More than four years passed before the military released
even the names of detainees held on this 45-square-mile base in southeast
Cuba _ and it did so only after the AP filed a Freedom of Information Act
request.
Detainees have been held in Camp Echo and Camps 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.
Journalists cleared by the military have been allowed to tour some of these
lockups, where 260 men are held, but aren't allowed to speak to detainees.
Some lawmakers and other VIPs have passed through, and the International Red
Cross has access, on the condition that no details about its visits with
detainees be made public.
But Camp 7, where 15 "high-value detainees" are held, is so secret that its
very existence was not publicly known until it was mentioned in December by
attorneys for Majid Khan, a former Baltimore resident who allegedly plotted
to bomb gas stations in the United States. Previously, many observers
believed the 15 were being held in Camps 5 or 6, which are maximum-security
facilities.
"Under the gag order ... we are prohibited from saying anything more about
their camp," lawyer Gitanjali Gutierrez, who met with Khan in October, said
Tuesday. Most of the lawyers' notes and memos have been stamped "top secret"
by the government.
Buzby told the AP he is sharply limiting to a "very few" the number of
people who know Camp 7's whereabouts.
He described it as a maximum security facility that was already built when
President Bush announced in September 2006 that 14 high-value terrorism
suspects had been transferred from CIA secret detention facilities to
Guantanamo. An additional detainee, Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, arrived last
April.
"They went straight into that facility," Buzby said.
Buzby, who heads all military detention operations on Guantanamo, said he
controls Camp 7, but would not discuss whether the CIA might still be
talking with the high-value detainees.
Paul Rester, the military's chief interrogator at Guantanamo, told AP he has
been interviewing one of the Camp 7 detainees and that others may be
interrogated, depending on intelligence needs.
But other key military commanders on the base have been told to leave Camp 7
to others.
"Not everybody, even within the Joint Task Force, has access or even
knowledge of where Camp 7 is," said Army Col. Bruce Vargo. As commander of
the military's Joint Detention Group at Guantanamo, Vargo is responsible for
the camps holding 260 detainees. But not for Camp 7.
Red Cross representatives have visited Camp 7 and all the other detention
facilities at Guantanamo, confirmed Geoff Loane, head of the humanitarian
organization's delegation in Washington. He declined to give details.
Buzby said the 15 are kept isolated in part to protect other prisoners.
"Detainees have told us a lot of things about this group of people, and if
there were potential for retribution it would be a very, very dangerous
situation," he said.
For his part, Vargo said he is preoccupied by the possibility of an al-Qaida
attack on Guantanamo.
"Although we are trying to be open, security is paramount," he said. "I
mean, if you can fly a plane into the towers, you can attack Guantanamo if
that's what you choose to do. It's something I think about on a day-to-day
basis."
Vargo declined to discuss whether the U.S. has received information that
al-Qaida may be planning such an attack. "We have intelligence reports, but
I don't want to release what we know for obvious reasons," he said.
While some military personnel have reportedly grumbled about being kept out
of the loop, others don't mind.
Army Col. Larry James, whose team of psychologists assists interrogators,
said he does not want to know where Camp 7 is.
"I learned a long, long time ago, if I'm going to be successful in the intel
community, I'm meticulously _ in a very, very dedicated way _ going to stay
in my lane," he said. "So if I don't have a specific need to know about
something, I don't want to know about it. I don't ask about it."
