US Needs Assurances for Guantánamo to Close, Says Rice

The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, today urged countries that have nationals held at Guantánamo Bay to help bring about its closure.

She said governments would have to give the US guarantees that the "bad people" detained in the camp would not be a danger if freed.

Rice said the Bush administration wanted to shut the camp, but said it could not be done at the expense of the safety of Americans and other people around the world.

She said the detention center contained dangerous men who had been caught in battle in Afghanistan and had been plotting terrorist strikes against capitals in the US, Europe and south-east Asia.

She said: "Of course we would like to see Guantánamo close - there's only one problem: what are you going to do with the bad people who are there?

"What are we going to do with them? Release them again on an unsuspecting population? I don't think so.

"One of the things that would help a lot is, in the discussions that we have with the states of which they are nationals, if we could get some of those countries to take them back ... and take them with constraints that ensure that they are not going to be a danger to society again.

"So we need some help in closing Guantánamo. Of course we'd like to do it, but we're not going to do it at the expense of the safety of Americans and other citizens."

Around 300 prisoners are held at Guantánamo Bay, a US naval base on the eastern tip of Cuba which, for the past five years, has been used as a detention center for suspected terrorists.