(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-01-14 20:21

He said he was encouraged to hear from US officers here that the prison population has shrunk by about 100 over the past year, to 277. At one time the population exceeded 600. Hundreds have been returned to their home countries but US officials say some are such serious security threats that they cannot be released for the foreseeable future. Only four are currently facing military trials after being formally charged with crimes.

Mullen also walked through an almost-completed top-security courtroom where the military expects to hold trials beginning this spring for the 14 "high-value" terror suspects who had previously been held at secret CIA prisons abroad. He was told that audio of the proceedings might be piped to locations in the United States where families of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, and perhaps others, could hear them.

Mullen's predecessor, retired Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, is a defendant in a lawsuit by four British men who allege they were systematically tortured throughout their two years of detention at this remote outpost. On Friday a federal appeals court in Washington ruled against the four men.

It was six years ago that Guantanamo Bay received its first prisoners, suspected terrorists picked up on the battlefields of Afghanistan as the Taliban government was being ousted from power.

The facility is on land leased from the Cuban government under terms of a long-term deal that predates the rule of President Fidel Castro. It is commanded by Navy Rear Adm. Mark Buzby.

Gates, at a Dec. 21 news conference at the Pentagon, noted the administration's failure to settle the closure debate.

"I think that the principal obstacle has been resolving a lot of the legal issues associated with closing Guantanamo and what you do with the prisoners when they come back (to the United States)," Gates said.

"Because of some of these legal concerns — some of which are shared by people in both parties on Capitol Hill — there has not been much progress in this respect," he added.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration considered Guantanamo Bay a suitable place to hold men suspected of links to the Taliban and al-Qaida, contending that US laws do not apply there because Guantanamo is not part of the United States. Lawyers for the detainees have challenged that interpretation ever since.

Before he finished his Guantanmo Bay visit and flew to Key West, Fla., Mullen got a look at a site on the eastern shore of Guantanamo Bay — opposite the terrorist detention center — where the US military is building a new refugee camp that would be used in the event of a sudden, major influx of refugees in the area. Initially the camp will be designed to hold 10,000 refugees and is scheduled to be finished by June.

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