U.S. admits Guantanamo 'restraint chairs'

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 (UPI) -- The U.S. military has confirmed a report it uses restraint chairs to force-feed hunger-striking terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

Gen. Bantz Craddock, head of the U.S. Southern Command, confirmed to reporters that a New York Times report on Feb. 9 was correct, and that such methods were being used only as a last resort.

Craddock said he and Department of Defense officials had reviewed the use of the restraints and concluded that the practice was "not inhumane."

He said the practice of restraining, force-feeding and isolation began after it was learned some of the detainees were deliberately vomiting or siphoning out the liquid they had been fed.

"It was causing problems because some of these hard-core guys were getting worse," Craddock said.

A spokesman for the Southern Command, Lt. Col. James Marshall, said that restraint chairs had been used in the feeding of 35 of the detainees, and that three were still being fed that way.

The military has generally discounted prisoner complaints, saying they are for the most part trained by al-Qaida to use false stories as propaganda, the Times said.