According to the
Times Online (London):
"No question, Guantanamo sends, you know, a signal to some of our friends - provides an excuse, for example, to say, 'The United States is not upholding the values that they're trying (to) encourage other countries to adhere to.'
"My answer to them is, is that we are a nation of laws. Eventually, these people will have trials and they will have counsel and they will be represented in a court of law."
Is this announcement a change in policy?
At present 460 people are held at Guantanamo as "enemy combatants". In total, only ten have been formally charged since the camp opened in early 2002. Washington does not acknowledge that they are prisoners of war or entitled to the full protection of the Geneva Conventions.
If anything stains the reputation of the United States more than this shameful policy of denying human rights I'd like to hear about it.