BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The International Committee of the Red Cross has issued a new report criticizing the detention of hundreds of suspects at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a Pentagon official said on Thursday.
The senior official, who asked not to be identified, gave no details, but told reporters traveling with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to Iraq that the ICRC had delivered the report to the State Department this week.
"It was described to him (Rumsfeld) as critical," the official said, noting that the Red Cross had repeatedly complained about the imprisonment at Guantanamo of more than 500 people -- most of them captured in Afghanistan -- in stark cells for up to two years or more without charges.
ICRC spokesman Florian Westphal in Geneva confirmed the agency had handed over a confidential report on Guantanamo to U.S. authorities as part of its standard procedure, but declined to give any details.
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