US in a spin over Guantanamo

[cal04]

ALREADY struggling to improve its image abroad, the United States went into damage control mode today after a senior State Department official called three suicides in Guantanamo Bay a "great PR move". State Department spokesman Sean McCormack distanced the department from the remark yesterday by deputy assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy Colleen Graffy. "I would just point out in public that we do not see it (the suicides) as a PR stunt," Mr McCormack said. He said the US was seriously concerned about the deaths of the two Saudis and a Yemeni, who hanged themselves in the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the US has held foreign security detainees since January 2002.

The State Department's top legal adviser, John Bellinger, said the US regretted the suicides very much and that the Bush administration had worked hard to improve conditions at Guantanamo. "The United States really does value the human lives that are there (in Guantanamo) and it is the last thing that we wanted to happen," said Mr Bellinger, who is leaving later today for Europe where he will proably be bombarded with questions about the suicides. Mr Bellinger said he would work to make clear, especially to the Muslim world, that the US would handle the remains of the dead prisoners in a respectful way. Professor Shibley Telhami of the Brookings Institution, said whatever damage control the State Department tried, it would not overcome negative views, particularly in the Arab world.

Mistrust is so deep that some Arab media were questioning whether the deaths were suicides at all. "At this point, public diplomacy simply cannot overcome the prevailing perceptions in the region towards the US," Prof Telhami said. Ms Graffy's comment irked State Department image crafters who fear it could further erode America's image among allies already critical of US human rights practices after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal when US personnel abused inmates.

State Department's image gurus also viewed a remark by Guantanamo prison commander, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, describing the suicides as acts of "asymmetrical warfare", as a blunder. Several State Department officials, all of whom declined to be named because the issue was so sensitive, said Ms Graffy had chosen her words poorly and noted that Rear Admiral Harris's comments were not repeated by other Bush administration officials. Mr McCormack said he would not try to dissect the motives of the prisoners who killed themselves. "In terms of the situation surrounding this incident, that will be fully investigated."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19455469-1702,00.html

[spindrifter]

1. Colleen Graffy--another example of the idiocy

that surrounds putting Karen Huge into the Undersecretary for Diplomacy slot. These people wouldn't know how to speak tactfully to Alfred E. Neuman.