Gitmo visits taped, recorded, info shows

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- The United States may have videotaped and recorded foreign visitors' meetings with detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, documents indicate.

Foreign intelligence and law enforcement teams were told visits to their citizens at Guantanamo would be recorded and the United States could have hours of taped conversations between detainees and representatives of about three dozen countries, documents obtained by The Washington Post indicate.

Countries were subjected to the rules "to protect the interests and insure the safety of all concerned," U.S. State Department cables sent to foreign government delegations in 2002-03 indicate.

Although attorneys for the detainees sought such evidence, The Bush administration has denied the requests and hasn't indicated the tapes' existence, the Post reported Tuesday.

U.S. Navy Cmdr. J.D. Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, said videotaping visits by foreign delegations wasn't "standard operating procedure" but done to protect the detainees, the foreign officials and the United States. He also said visits were monitored for "intelligence-collection purposes."

Officials from governments that visited Guantanamo Bay detainees said they understood the sessions would be recorded.

"We knew for a while that all the interrogations and questioning was being recorded and that that was the routine," one Yemeni official told the Post.