NEW YORK -- The United Nations recommendation that the United States should release all detainees being held at Guantanamo or bring them to trial and shut the facility down is one of the strongest criticisms yet of the U.S. torture policy. While the Bush administration rejected the U.N. recommendation, the fate of Guantanamo's detainees represents the top ethical and medical challenge facing the White House.

The U.N. recommendation is the result of an investigation carried out by a five-member U.N. team about the conditions of the detainees in that facility. Its findings are based on interviews with ex-detainees and lawyers, media reports and a questionnaire filled by the U.S. government. The Bush administration claims that the report is not valid since it is not based on an actual visit to Guantanamo. The U.N. team rejected such a visit since it was informed that they wouldn't be able to meet privately with the detainees.

The detainees in Guantanamo number now about 490, were captured in Afghanistan and other countries, and are called "enemy combatants" because they were taken prisoners on battlefields. However, an article appearing in the National Journal article shows more than half of the Guantanamo detainees were in fact abducted in the mountains of Pakistan by warlords who were rewarded in cash by U.S. forces. By considering the detainees "enemy combatants" the U.S. government justifies denying them protections normally given to prisoners of war.