Washington wants to shut down Guantanamo, says Rice

WASHINGTON: The US has said that it did not want to be "world's jailers" and Washington was eager to shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention facility but asserted that "dangerous people" there would not be set free.

"No one would like to shut down Guantanamo more than this administration. We don't want to be the world's jailers," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a series of Sunday Talk Shows.

"But I would ask people to answer... then what do we do with the hundreds of dangerous people there who were caught on the battlefield, who are known to have connections, who regularly say that, if they're released, they're going to go back to killing Americans? Do you really want those people on the streets?" she said.

Pressed for an answer whether Guantanamo detention centre will not be closed Rice replied, "In time... Of course it will be closed. It's my hope that that time is coming".

Rice refused to provide a time table for the shut down of the US facility in Cuba.

"...I'm not going to talk in timetables. What we can talk about is what results we want. And we want a result in which we are certain that dangerous people are not going to be let back out onto the streets," Rice said.

"Guantanamo is a necessity because of the nature of the war on terror, but lots of changes have been made there," Rice said when pointed out about the observation of a UN Panel that the facility has to be shut down.

"I only wish that UN rapporteurs had gone to Guantanamo and actually looked at what was going on there. This is a little difficult to understand by remote control," Rice said.

Members of the panel had asked permission to not only visit the facility but also interview the prisoners. Pentagon refused permission for interviews saying that the UN cannot be treated any differently from oversight panels of the Congress.

She said "hundreds" have been released from Guantanamo but that there would have to be assurance from host countries and governments of proper treatment and proper monitoring.

The Guantanamo detention facility has not only attracted the attention of the United Nations. In recent days the Pentagon has confirmed fighting between inmates and prison guards over suicide attempts.

At least six terrorism suspects are said to be injured when security guards used force to break up resistance from prisoners who were assisting a group of inmates in commiting suicide.