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bertinehttp://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/13/politics/13GITM.html?hp
</>One senior Defense Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity said critics in the United States and abroad had greatly misunderstood the situation at Guantánamo and the need to detain so many people without charging them.
"We feel very much like we are in an active war," said the official, asserting that the civilian law enforcement model in which people are prosecuted for crimes or set free did not apply. "What we're doing at Guantánamo is more understandable in the war context," the official said.
</>One senior Defense Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity said critics in the United States and abroad had greatly misunderstood the situation at Guantánamo and the need to detain so many people without charging them.
"We feel very much like we are in an active war," said the official, asserting that the civilian law enforcement model in which people are prosecuted for crimes or set free did not apply. "What we're doing at Guantánamo is more understandable in the war context," the official said.
