US rows back from Guantanamo suicide comments

London, 12 June : A senior US official today rowed back from remarks by colleagues that Guantanamo Bay prisoners' suicides were an act of war and a ''good PR move'', after the comments were condemned abroad.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs Cully Stimson, speaking to BBC radio, distanced himself from the statements.

''I wouldn't characterise it as a good PR move. What I would say is that we are always concerned when someone takes his own life.

Because as Americans, we value life, even the lives of violent terrorists who are captured waging war against our country,'' he said.

The camp commander, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, had described the three suicides as an act of war. Colleen Graffy, US deputy assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy, told the BBC yesterday the deaths were ''a good PR move''.

In an editorial headlined ''Bad Language'', the right-leaning Times, normally a defender of Britain's alliance with the United States, said such rhetoric ''plays once again into the hands of America's enemies.'' The left-leaning Guardian described Admiral Harris's remarks as ''cold and odious''. ''The demented logic of Dr Strangelove hung like a ghost'' over the US response to the suicides, it said.

Britain has been Washington's closest ally in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Prime Minister Tony Blair has been cautious in criticising Guantanamo, which he describes as an ''anomaly''.

But senior British officials have increasingly openly called for the camp to be closed down.

''If it is perfectly legal and there is nothing going wrong there, why don't they have it in America?'' Constitutional Affairs Minister Harriet Harman said.

''It is in a legal no man's land. Either it should be moved to America and then they can hold those people under the American justice system or it should be closed.'' Nine British citizens have been held in Guantanamo Bay. All returned to Britain and none has been charged. Several appeared in media interviews over the weekend in which they said they were not surprised that inmates had killed themselves.

Reuters

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