U.S. lawmakers say conditions at the U.S. prison for suspected terrorists and enemy combatants in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba have improved.
Sixteen members of the House of Representatives toured the prison Saturday on a one-day fact-finding trip. The lawmakers witnessed interrogations, toured cell-blocks and ate the same meals as served to the detainees.
Representative Ellen Tauscher, a California Democrat, said the Guantanamo she saw was not the same one she heard about a few years ago, and fellow-Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas said the facility showed evidence of improvement. She has been among lawmakers calling for the facility to be shut down amid accusations of prisoner abuse.
Speaking Sunday on Fox News television, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the idea that there is a policy of abuse or torture at Guantanamo is false.
Some information for this report provided by AFP and AP.