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Detainees treated `humanely, with dignity': US general

"We struggle with how to handle [the prisoners], but we've always handled them humanely and with the dignity that they should be accorded."

Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Terrorism suspects held in the US Navy prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are being dealt with "humanely" and with "dignity," the US' top military officer said in disputing reported abuses.

In television appearances on Sunday, Air Force General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff also said US officials believe al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is wounded, but it's not known how badly.

Muslims in several countries have demonstrated in recent weeks over allegations that a Koran, their faith's holy book, was flushed down a toilet by guards at Guantanamo. Myers denied that.

The human rights group Amnesty International also released a report last week calling the prison camp "the gulag of our time."

Myers said that the report was "absolutely irresponsible."

He said the US was doing its best to detain fighters who, if released, "would turn right around and try to slit our throats, slit our children's throats."

"This is a different kind of struggle, a different kind of war," Myers said on Fox News Sunday. "We struggle with how to handle [the prisoners], but we've always handled them humanely and with the dignity that they should be accorded."

Myers repeated the Pentagon's contention that five cases of mistreatment of the Koran at Guantanamo had been confirmed, but he gave no other details of the mistreatment.

The US military detained more than 68,000 people since Sept. 11, 2001, he said, and had looked into 325 complaints of mistreatment.

Investigations have found 100 cases of prisoner mistreatment and 100 people have been punished, the general said.

On Zarqawi, who heads the al-Qaeda insurgency in Iraq, Myers said US officials believe postings on a militant Web site that Zarqawi had been wounded in a battle.

He did not know whether Zarqawi had left Iraq for treatment in another country, as some Web sites and news organizations have reported.

In London, The Sunday Times reported that Zarqawi was being treated in Iran after a piece of shrapnel hit his chest during an attack on his convoy. Iran denies it is harboring Zarqawi.

Myers said he did not think the US should have used more troops in the Iraq invasion but acknowledged that progress has proved slower than military officials had hoped.

"I don't think we understood that people had been suppressed, and their spirit had been suppressed to the point where it wasn't just going to naturally blossom once they had the opportunity," the general said on CBS' Face the Nation.
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