Homeland Security

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QUESTION: (Inaudible.) If I can jump for a second to the Annual Report of Human Rights Watch. The group released its annual report today, and two questions on that. First of all, as part of the war on terrorism, the United States cooperates with regimes that are generally undemocratic, many of them in the Middle East. The gamut runs from Yemen to Saudi Arabia to Libya to whatever. Two things on that. Does -- is it afraid of its image abroad when it does that? And second of all, is it afraid of encouraging those regimes in continuing in their undemocratic ways? And second of all, assuming that the United States accepts the fact that it --

MR. BOUCHER: I don't accept the premise of the question, but I -- as a single factor. Many other factors are involved, but maybe I should answer them separately.

QUESTION: Okay. And another one is, the Geneva Convention has as a signatory, the United States. How does it reconcile its being a signatory to Geneva Conventions and the conditions that -- in Guantanamo Bay? This is one of the issues that was in the report.

MR. BOUCHER: Let me ask the second part -- answer the second part first. The United States made very clear that we will treat detainees, Guantanamo or elsewhere, in a manner that's consistent with the Geneva Convention even though we don't necessarily agree with all these groups over precisely how they're covered. So, we have pledged that and we have committed to that and we will try to -- we will ensure that we do that, that we do treat detainees consistent with the Geneva Convention.

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QUESTION: Richard, can I go back to the Guantanamo question for just a second? Do you know -- are the ICRC visits that occurred back last year and I guess even beyond that, are they continuing? And have groups like Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International, have they also been given access to --

MR. BOUCHER: I don't know. You'd have to check with the Pentagon on who's visiting down there.

QUESTION: Aren't you -- okay, I will. But, you guys are the point of contact, right, for arranging -- for at least arranging with the Pentagon these days? I know for the ICRC you are. They don't go to the Pentagon, they come here.

MR. BOUCHER: No, they come here and then we pass it on and the Pentagon, I think, makes the arrangements. We have an ongoing dialogue with the ICRC about prisoners that are in American custody and we do arrange for visits, consular representative visits, I just don't know when we might have done ICRC ones. But I think the Pentagon's reported on that before.

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QUESTION: On the subject of travel, non-Secretarial, which there seems to be quite a lot of these days, Deputy Secretary Armitage is heading to Moscow next week?

MR. BOUCHER: That he is. That he is.

QUESTION: Can you explain why?

MR. BOUCHER: Maybe. I have some details somewhere. Yeah. Deputy Secretary Armitage will be traveling to Moscow January 22 and 23 to attend the 9th Meeting of the Counterterrorism Working Group which he co-chairs with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Trubnikov.

The Working Group will discuss the situation in Afghanistan and other regions that are coping with terrorism and instability, such as Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. They'll also discuss counterterrorism efforts worldwide with a particular focus on combating nuclear, biological and chemical terrorism. We had looked to see whether he couldn't make some other stops, particularly Uzbekistan, but looks like he's not going to be able to do that on this trip, so he'll be coming straight back to Washington after his meetings in Moscow.

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