U.S. to fund prison in Afghanistan

[sabra]

http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20050914-104516-3998r

U.S. to fund prison in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon will help finance construction of a locally run military prison in Afghanistan as part of a plan to send to their home countries scores of terror detainees at the prison at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The releases in the next year or so could reduce the prisoner population at the base to less than 400, from a one-time high of 800. There has not been a new detainee sent to Guantanamo since last September.


"We hope that in the future there will be less need for us to detain large numbers there," Matthew C. Waxman, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, told The Washington Times. If any new detainees come to Guantanamo, he said, "it would be at a much slower, small rate of inflow than anything that we saw at the beginning" in 2002.

Instead, the Bush administration is embarking on a new strategy.

Mr. Waxman said the United States will help Afghanistan build a military prison to detain enemy combatants and to accept transfers from Guantanamo. A defense official could not supply details on the new prison, saying talks were in the early stages. The Pentagon also has made Guantanamo more selective, looking only for detainees thought to hold valuable intelligence information about terror networks.

[iconoclastic cat]

1. Meet your new regional Abu Ghraib! n/t