Liberation, Repatriation, Disanomalisation

The rules of the game are changing again. George W Bush has said three times in the last fortnight that he wants to close Guantánamo Bay. Obviously the Vicar of Downing Street's remarks about the camp's anomalousness have cut to the quick of his moral fibre. There have been no new arrivals since September 2004, and a hundred and twenty of the present guests are scheduled for repatriation. A whole ten prisoners have already been charged by the military tribunals, so clearly all has not been in vain.

Still, there might be problems in the offing. Some of the prisoners come from countries where torture is less anomalous than in the civilised world, and the United States, Britain and the European Community certainly do not intend to endanger their citizens further by granting asylum to a few hundred innocent men. Five Chinese Muslims eventually found freedom in Albania last month, but it seems unlikely that weaker and more vulnerable countries, such as the US and Britain, will be able to emulate Albania's compassionate policy.

There may also be difficulties in bringing to trial those numerous cases where the US authorities know beyond doubt that the prisoners are guilty on the basis of incontrovertible evidence which cannot be shared. Civil courts are occasionally somewhat picky about evidence which one side refuses to divulge; and no doubt a slick civil liberties lawyer could imply that the secrecy resulted from something more sinister than the administration's habitual and laudable concern for national security. Military courts, on the other hand "given Guantánamo's history ... may not be seen as legitimate by other countries", according to one prisoner's lawyer. Since the whole idea of closing the place is a matter of public relations, this seems a somewhat fatal disadvantage.

However, the US has plenty of other detention centres scattered about the world, so it is possible that any prisoners who fall into a persistent non-disposable state can be removed to Poland, Romania or some other interesting location. If only those bureaucratic bleeding hearts at the Supreme Court would hurry up and tell George he can go ahead, I bet the disanomalisation would be proceeding apace even now.