Ex-Guantanamo Army chief stops in GV on way home

After a year as the highest-ranking army officer at Guantanamo Bay, Brig. Gen. Cameron Crawford visited Green Valley this week and took time to reflect about the unique status of it as a prisoner-of-war camp located on an island nation under communist control.

It’s United States’ oldest military base on what amounts to hostile, foreign soil.

It’s been there since June 10, 1898, he said.

Cuba and the United States keep their distance, Crawford said.

Each side has built fences around the base, and there’s a two-mile buffer between them—a kind of no-man’s land.

Crawford stopped to visit Green Valley acquaintances before heading for Oregon, where he’s returning to a job with Weyerhaeuser, the forest products company.

A West Point graduate, Crawford has spent at least 14 years on active duty and is a member of the Oregon National Guard. Much of his work has been commanding Military Police units.

There are about 275 men being held as prisoners of war at Guantanamo, some of them in extreme isolation for up to six years.

The base announced this week it would permit some telephone calls from the inmates to approved friends and family.

Crawford said of the 275 prisoners at Guantanamo, some are eligible for release, but they’d be in danger if they were returned to their home country.

“About 75 are on the approved transfer list, but don’t want to go home or are being held because of their safety,” he said. They may be targets if just released, said Crawford.

“We don’t want to keep detainees” who are ready for release, said the general.

He said living conditions for prisoners are “probably better than anywhere in the world.”

They get food, medical care, some mail, have a library and other amenities.

At one time, Guantanamo quartered 800 POWs. Some 500 were transferred and some were released to the total 275 now.

The Army’s duty there is to run the prison camp.

The Navy is the caretaker of the base, the docks, airfields and such. It’s a major refueling stop for U.S. military planes and ships on missions off the Southeastern United States and southern Atlantic.

The Army unit is on a higher state of alert than are the Navy’s men and women.

Qualified Naval personnel can bring their families there and they aren’t on as high alert as are the Army personnel.

Critics say Guantanamo prisoners are held in almost isolation, having only two hours a day outsider their cells and are not allowed contact with other inmates.

Some critics say the Muslim prisoners are denied access to the Quran, but Crawford said that’s not so. It’s available to any prisoner.

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