Guantanamo Bay detention camp

On January 11th, 2002, the United States Department of Defense opened a Guantanamo detention camp for captives apprehended in Afghanistan, and certain other places around the world.

It was the position of the Bush administration that captives apprehended in Afghanistan were not protected by the Geneva Conventions. Aspects of this policy have been over-ruled by the United States Congress and the United States Supreme Court

Main article: Detainee Treatment Act

Main article: Rasul v. Bush

Main article: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld

Main article: Boumediene v. Bush

Captives' identities

Part of the Bush administrations' policy on captives apprehended during the "war on terror" was to keep their identities and locations secret. During 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and early 2006 the Associated Press, the Washington Post, and various non-governmental organizations tried to interpolate the captives' identities. Nevertheless, many of the captives' families reported they had no idea that the captives were still alive. All they knew was that the captives had disappeared, without trace.

The Associated Press had initiated an extensive series of Freedom of Information Act requests, focussed around the captives' identities. The Department of Defense declined to honor these requests. The Associated Press took the Department of Defense. The Department justified withholding the captives identities by arguing that by doing so they were protecting the captives' rights to privacy.

In January 2006 US District Court judge Jed S. Rakoff rejected this argument, and ruled that the Department of Defense had to publish the captives' identities by 6pm Friday March 3rd, 2006.

The Department of Defense did not meet this deadline. They did supply the Associated Press with a CDROM with dozens of portable document format files on it later on the evening of March 3rd.

Fifty-three of the 59 large portable document format files published on March 3rd, 2006 contained 360 sumarized transcripts from Combatant Status Review Tribunals, held in 2004. Three further files were the first of 19 files that contained transcripts from the first annual Administrative Review Board hearings, held in 2005.

The transcripts however were not titled with the captives' names. They were not published in alphabetic order, or in order by the captives' ID numbers. They were identified only by the captives' Internee Security Number.

The Department of Defense published a first official list of captives on April 20th, 2006, and a second, longer, official list on May 15th, 2006. Although these two official lists were published only three weeks apart dozens of the captives' names were spelled inconsistently on the two lists.

Main article: Guantanamo captives' documents

Guantanamo captives' living conditions

The first captives to be detained in Guantanamo were housed in a compound called Camp X-ray, in the northeast corner of the base. Captives were housed in open-air cages there.

As the number of captives held there grew Camp X-Ray was closed, and a complex of camps called Camp Delta was opened near the coast.

At its high point the camp contained approximately 650 captives. Approximately 780 captives have been housed there.

558 captives had their "enemy combatant" status reviewed by the Combatant Status Review Tribunals in late 2004, or January 2005.

The first semi-pubic reviews, in 2004

Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held in 3 x 6 meter trailer. The captive hands were cuffed, and their feet shackled to a bolt in the floor. Three chairs were reserved for members of the press, but only 37 of the 574 Tribunals were observed.

Hearing room where Guantanamo captive's annual Administrative Review Board hearings convened for captives whose Combatant Status Review Tribunal had already determined they were an "enemy combatant".

In early 2004 the Department of Defense started drafting plans to provide a semi-public program to review the captives' status. In the summer of 2004 Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense created the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants (OARDEC), to be headed by a "Designated Civilian Official" (DCO). Rumsfeld appointed Gordon England to be the first Designated Civilian Official. England was the Secretary of the Navy at the time. When England was promoted to Deputy Secretary of Defense he remained the Designated Civilian Official.

In its ruling in Rasul v. Bush the Supreme Court ruled that the Bush administration had to provide a venue for the captives to learn the reasons why they were being detained, and offer them an opportunity to refute those allegations. The Supreme Court advised that this venue should be modeled after the Tribunals described in Army Regulation 190-8.

Army Regulation 190-8 is a 150 document subtitled: "Military Police: Enemy Prisoners of War, Retained Personnel, Civilian Internees and Other Detainees". It lays out the procedures American GIs should follow to make sure the USA's treatment of captives complies with the Geneva Conventions. The two procedures that OARDEC administers are modeled after the Tribunals described in Army Regulation 190-8, except for their very different mandates.

Guantanamo military commissions

In 2004 President Bush authorized the Office of Military Commissions to charge and try Guantanamo captives. Critics asked why those captives who were involved in terrorist acts could not be charged and tried under either the US civil justice system, like Zacharia Moussaui, Ahmed Ressam, John Walker Lindh, or those convicted of a role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, or alternatively, the US military's court-martial system. Critics challenged that the new system was without precedent -- literally. That it had no established rules of procedure, or rules of evidence, and that there was no legal code upon which offenses could be based. Critics were disturbed that the Guantanamo Military Commissions were allowed to use evidences based on torture, and that they were allowed to consider anonymous hearsay evidence, which the suspect would not have an opportunity to cross examine. The Commissions were allowed to consider secret evidence, which the suspect would not even be allowed to be made aware of.

Eventually ten captives were charged under the first, Presidentially authorized Guantanamo Military Commissions.

In July of 2006 the Supreme Court ruled that the President lacked the constitutional authority to set up Military commissions. It recommended that only the United States Congress had the authority to set up Military Commissions. In the fall of 2006 Congress passed the Military Commissions Act. It authorized Military Commissions very similar to the second version of the President.

Twenty captives have been charged under the Congressionally authorized Guantanamo Commissions. Most of the captives who originally faced charges, have faced new, different charges under the new Commissions.

Guantanamo captives' access to the US Justice System

The Bush administration has argued that American law does not apply on the Guantanamo Naval Base, because it is not official US territory -- merely leased from Cuba.