US: The White House is split over whether to close the Guantánamo Bay detention camp for suspected terrorists in Cuba, a Republican lawmaker said yesterday, as a magazine reported that a top al-Qaeda suspect interrogated there was made to bark like a dog and subjected to Christina Aguilera music.
Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, said some members of the Bush administration wanted to close the camp. The jail has been criticised as a modern "gulag" by Amnesty International.
After calls to close the camp from former US president Jimmy Carter, President Bush said last week that he was "exploring all alternatives". Vice-president Dick Cheney, however, said there was "no plan to close" Guantánamo. "The important thing here to understand is that the people that are at Guantánamo are bad people," he said.
Time magazine yesterday disclosed new details of interrogation methods at the camp, citing a log on an al-Qaeda suspect, Mohammad al-Kahtani. Techniques included inflicting a "sissy slap" with an inflated latex glove, forcing al-Kahtani to "bark to elevate his social status up to that of a dog", and rejecting a request that he be allowed to pray. Interrogators also played music by pop singer Christina Aguilera to keep him from dozing off, Time said.