WASHINGTON, Jan 10 (AFP) - Only about 25 percent of 550 war-on-terror prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba are still of intelligence value, a Pentagon spokesman said Monday as the controversial jail nears its third year.
The United States is negotiating the transfer of prisoners from Guantanamo to other countries even as it plans to build a more permanent prison for those left behind, said Major Michael Shavers.
How many are likely to be transferred is still "in the realm of speculation," he said.
"We've moved people out, but I would not characterize it as an acceleration of the process," he said. "That said, we aren't looking to hold people at Gitmo indefinitely, which leads to the negotiations we talked about."
Shavers confirmed a report in the Financial Times that said officials now estimate that 25 percent of Guantanamo prisoners are of intelligence value.
In deciding what do with a prisoner, authorities also take into account whether he poses a threat, Shavers noted. Prisoners designated for trial by military commission also are excluded from transfers.
But with dwindling numbers of prisoners considered to have significant information, the administration has less of an argument to hold them at a time when the indefinite detentions without trial are under attack in US courts and elsewhere as an abuse of power.
The Financial Times reported that four Britons held at the camp were expected to be released in the next couple of weeks as part of a plan to radically reduce the number of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
The Pentagon has proposed building a more permanent facility at Guantanamo called "Camp Six" to hold prisoners who are neither transferred nor released.
The proposed 25-million-dollar camp would have a capacity of 200 beds, more communal living space and a psychiatric wing, a defense official said, on condition of anonymity.
The official said it would hold prisoners considered a threat whether or not they have intelligence value.
"Right now it only exists on paper. It's not funded," said Shavers of the Camp Six plan. "But it's only logical to take a look at the future of detention operations, especially as you consider the fact that the Camps One through Four are reaching end of their designed life."
"No decision has been made on who would be in such a camp," he said.
The detention center went into operation on January 11, 2002 as the first prisoners arrived hooded and shackled on military flights from Afghanistan and were put in cage-like cells at a facility called Camp X-Ray.
Camp X-Ray was replaced as the center added five more camps to hold a population that at one point surpassed 700 prisoners, most but not all of whom were detained in Afghanistan.
Since then just over 200 prisoners have been transferred to their home countries to be held or released.
The United States asserts the right to hold prisoners as "enemy combatants" for the duration of its "war on terrorism," and contends that they are not protected by the Geneva Conventions covering prisoners of war.
However, the US Supreme Court has ruled that prisoners can contest their detention in US federal courts, and the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo has come under fire with disclosures most recently that FBI agents reported witnessing a variety of abuses there.
The US Southern Command last week announced it had launched an investigation into the alleged abuse.
01/10/2005 19:40 GMT - AFP