Cheney: No Plans to Shut Guantanamo Jail

[2pac Shakur]

WASHINGTON - Vice President
Dick Cheney, reacting to a growing chorus of calls to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay where terrorism suspects are held, says there are no present plans to do so. "The important thing here to understand is that the people that are at Guantanamo are bad people," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor.../us_guantanamo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Halliburton Co. has been awarded a $9.7 million contract to build an additional 204-cell detention camp at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to hold additional suspected al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners, the Pentagon said on Friday.

The move will expand the high-security prison on the base, where hundreds of such "detainees" from Afghanistan are already being held in 612 small cells.

The prison at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station has played a major part in the U.S. war on terrorism declared after September's attacks on America in which more than 3,000 people died. No prisoners have been charged, but some could eventually face military trials.

Brown and Root Services, an engineering division of Halliburton, will build the additional 6-by-8-foot cells on the windward side of the remote U.S. base at the southeastern tip of Cuba, the Pentagon said.

The work is expected to be completed by October. But the Pentagon suggested on Friday that the facility could grow even more and that the contract could eventually total as much as $300 million if additional options were exercised over the next four years.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0727-02.htm


2 completely unrelated stories.