NEWS: Records Examine Guantanamo Suicide Bids, page 1

The Associated Press is reporting that prisoners in the Guantanamo Bay prison for terror suspects started a flurry of suicide attempts 3 months after Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller took over as commander.

Records Examine Guantanamo Suicide Bids
Between January and March 2003, 14 prisoners at Guantanamo tried to kill themselves, according to Pentagon (news - web sites) figures. That's more than 40 percent of the 34 suicide attempts by 21 inmates since the prison was opened in January 2002.

Miller is now in charge of all military-run U.S. prisons in Iraq (news - web sites), a job he took after news broke of beatings and sexual humiliations last fall at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

Miller had visited Abu Ghraib in August and September and recommended interrogation techniques that military lawyers said had to be modified to comply with the Geneva Conventions on treating prisoners of war.

Human rights groups say the suicide attempts at Guantanamo Bay may be evidence that conditions there amounted to torture.

The Bush administration calls the men "enemy combatants," similar to traditional prisoners of war but not subject to the guarantees of the Geneva Conventions against torture and other abuses. The administration contends their treatment nevertheless is humane.

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