WASHINGTON, March 2 (UPI) -- The recent United Nations Human Rights Commission report into Guantanamo Bay has placed international divisions over the War on Terror firmly back in the spotlight. Published Feb. 16, 2006 the report, made without investigators actually visiting Guantanamo Bay, concluded, "the United States should close the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities without further delay."

At a Heritage Foundation conference titled "GITMO: What You Read v. What You See," analysts debated the Guantanamo anomaly. The detention camp has been the subject of biting criticism from Europe, supranational organizations and a plethora of human rights groups. However, in the midst of the current furor, there is little consensus on how best to proceed.

The United States established the detention facility in the wake of the Afghanistan War. In June 2005, the camp held 520 suspected foreign suspects, and in July 2005 the Department of Defense announced that 242 detainees had been removed from Guantanamo. Of these, 173 had been released and 69 were transferred to governments of other countries.

The questionable legality of this anomalous base, located on the island of one of America's bitterest enemies, lies at the root of international criticism. Many argue the United States is in breach of the Geneva Conventions, as the Third Geneva Convention does not distinguish between prisoners of war and illegal combatants.

Addressing the seminar of the conservative Washington think tank, Brian Del Monte, deputy director of the office of detainee policy at the Department of Defense, refuted this notion. "We believe we have a framework which balances our need for security with our international obligations to provide humane detention," he said.

Within this legal debate, the treatment of detainees has been the focus of detailed international and media scrutiny, which intensified in June 2004 when a confidential report produced by the International Committee of the Red Cross was leaked to The New York Times. The committee accused the U.S. military of using "humiliating acts, solitary confinement, temperature extremes, forced positions" as part of the interrogation process.

Jennifer Daskal, advocacy director for U.S. programs at Human Rights Watch, endorsed these charges. "Allegations of torture and abuse are pervasive," she said.

However, Heritage speakers with firsthand experience of Guantanamo dismissed all claims of mistreatment. According to Steve Short, a retired Command Sergeant Major with the U.S. Army, "I can honestly say that when taking part in briefings, I never heard anything that indicated any inappropriate action was being taken against detainees."

Short emphasized the extensive training received by military personnel running the base. U.S. soldiers "cared for detainees in much the same way that they would like to be cared for if the situation were reversed," he said. This was reiterated by Tom Brock, National Commander of the American Legion, who said the troopers "understood this is a detentional facility and not a correctional one."

The Bush administration asserts that the vast majority of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are Taliban or al-Qaida fighters detained in Afghanistan. Indeed, on June 20, 2005, President Bush stated, "These are people picked up off the battlefield in Afghanistan. They weren't wearing uniforms but they were there to kill."

As Operation Enduring Freedom recedes further into the past, critics have questioned the current intelligence value of many detainees. In February 2006, the National Journal reviewed government files on 132 prisoners, and examined transcripts from the Combatant Status Review Tribunals for 314 detainees. The findings led Corrine Hegland to conclude that many of the illegal combatants are "simply not the worst of the worst in the terrorist world."

Daskal of Human Rights Watch endorsed the National Journal contention that many detainees "have not been tied directly to hostilities against the United States." According to Daskal, some prisoners were sold into Guantanamo by bounty hunters. "When you look at the facts, you find the majority of those in Guantanamo were not picked up on the battlefield," she said.

Critics also suggest that prisoners are victims of international political maneuvering which occurred in the wake of the 2001 attacks on the United States. In the National Journal article "Empty Evidence," Hegland emphasized the role of Pakistan in apprehending suspects. "Islamabad was eager to strengthen its new alliance with Washington. The Americans wanted prisoners and no one was looking too closely at who these prisoners were," she wrote.

However, for others the intelligence value of the detainees remains at a premium. Del Monte argued, "These are the facilitators, the financiers, these are the individuals who are experts at training other combatants. These individuals need to be detained ... The amount of information we have obtained from the detainees is immense," he said.

As these divisions harden, the search for an effective way forward becomes ever more pertinent. Yet, almost in reflection of the rifts over Guantanamo, there is little sign of a consensus over possible solutions.

The United Nations has urged the United States to close its detention facility, and other world leaders have echoed such sentiments. In a Jan. 9 interview with Der Spiegel, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said "an institution like Guantanamo in its present form must not exist in the long term."

Despite such international appeals, other observers contend that U.S. national interests, and not the criticisms of supranational organizations, should determine American actions in Guantanamo Bay.

In a Heritage Foundation Web Memo, "The U.N.'s Guantanamo Folly: Why the United Nations Report is Not Credible," Nile Gardiner and James Carafano suggest recent criticisms are politically motivated. "As the United Nations tries desperately to recover from waves of corruption scandals, it seeks to shift attention to its favorite target, Washington's prosecution of the War on Terror," they wrote.

In view of such problems within the United Nations, Carafano and Gardner conclude "U.S. policy on Guantanamo Bay can only be set by the president and the United States Congress, in consultation with America's allies and treaty partners -- not by bureaucrats in Turtle Bay or Geneva".