STAVANGER - Visiting US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Wednesday defended the treatment of detainees at the Guantanamo prison as "professional and humane" and said Washington was not considering closing down the facility.
"I know of no one in the US government in the executive branch that is considering closing Guantanamo. It is unfortunately something that is necessary in the world we're living in," Rumsfeld told reporters.
"It's something that the folks in charge of it are doing in a very professional and humane way," he added.
US Democratic Senator Joseph Biden has proposed the closure of Guantanamo amid charges of improper behavior by prison guards.
Asked whether US aircraft had made stopovers in Norway on flights carrying suspected terrorists, Rumsfeld said he had no such knowledge.
The daily Stavanger Aftenblad reported that a plane which until March of this year had apparently been used by the US Marshall Service to transfer prisoners inside the United States made a stopover last week at the Sola airport outside Stavanger on a flight to Tucson, Arizona.
The newspaper said the Norwegian foreign ministry had asked the US government for a clarification.
"I have not been able to find anybody in the Department of Defense who has any knowlege whatsoever about these aircraft that some media in Norway have been reporting on," Rumsfeld said.
"Obviously you don't know what you don't know. But everything I know is that there isn't an ounce of connection between those aircraft and the Department of Defence or to my knowledge the US government," he said.
Media outlets worldwide have reported that the US Central Intelligence Agency has spirited terror suspects out of their country of residence to states suspected of using torture, despite laws that ban the expulsion or extradition of individuals to countries where torture occurs.
Rumsfeld made the comments at a press conference with Norwegian Defence Minister Kristin Krohn Devold who joined him in signing a memorandum of understanding on continued prepositioning of US military supplies in NATO member Norway.
Protestors gathered outside the gates of the NATO Joint Warfare Centre where the two ministers held talks.
The United States has since the early 1980s maintained military materiel in Norway to equip a marine expeditionary brigade to reinforce the Scandinavian country in the event of an attack.
Under the new agreement, the prepositioned equipment would be repackaged to be globally deployable for a wider range of operations, such as peacekeeping missions or humanitarian and disaster relief operations.
Devold said the changes will still enable US marines to quickly come to Norway's aid, falling in on the prepositioned equipment. "And that is definitely valuable for Norway, that our most important ally would be able to come here and assist us with prepositioned equipment in certain situations," she said.
In addition, airforce equipment will be reduced from being stored at five airbases in Norway to just two.
Two US Navy fleet hospitals that have been prepositioned in Norway for 30 years will also be scaled back as the Navy reorganises them into smaller modular units.
Rumsfeld left Norway for Brussels on Wednesday where he was to take part in a meeting of NATO defense ministers on June 9 and 10.
06/08/2005 15:00 GMT