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Pentagon Disavows Comment on Detainees
Stimson also described Guantanamo as "certainly, probably the most transparent and open location in the world" because of visits from more than 2,000 journalists since it opened five years ago. However, journalists are not allowed to talk to detainees on those visits, their photos are censored and their access to the base has at times been shut off entirely."
He discounted international outrage over the detention center as "small little protests around the world" that were "drummed up by Amnesty International" and inflated in importance by liberal news media outlets.
  Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs Charles "Cully" Stimson talks with reporters during a briefing at the Pentagon Sept. 6, 2006 in Washington. The Pentagon on Saturday disavowed remarks made by Simson during a radio interview last week when he suggested boycotting law firms that represent detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (AP Photo/Department of Defense, R. D. Ward) (Robert D. Ward - AP) 
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FBI agents have documented more than two dozen incidents of possible mistreatment at the Guantanamo. In one, a detainee's head was wrapped in duct tape because he chanted the Quran; in a second, a detainee pulled out his hair after hours in a sweltering room.
In a December court ruling, a federal judge in Washington decried the plight of "some of the unfortunate petitioners who have been detained for many years in the terrible conditions at Guantanamo Bay."
The judge criticized a system in which dozens have been held without charges and cut off from the world for lack of English or knowledge about the law, leaving them no choice but to turn to a fellow prisoner with outside connections for legal help.
Since the detention center opened, the U.S. military has transferred or released about 380 detainees. Some 395 remain locked up in the prison.
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