backs, kneeling, with some sort of goggles covering their eyes. The picture made waves—indeed, the very fact that their eyes were covered in such a manner was labeled as torture in some circles[1]—and was so controversial that it was raised in a press briefing with then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. And since that was the first time the men were seen, it was, of course, the first time they were seen in orange jumpsuits.
By the 10th day after the first men had arrived at Guantanamo, the press frenzy had reached such a fever pitch that Rumsfeld held an unusual briefing in which the only topic was the detainees and their treatment, and he promised to stay as long as there were questions to answer. It was then that the subject of the now-infamous image was raised:
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, since you want to clear the air about the detainees, one of the things that have aroused public opinion and the parliamentarians in Britain is this photograph that shows the detainees kneeling with their hands tied behind their back. Can you just explain that—
RUMSFELD: I will, to the best of my ability. It's probably unfortunate that it was released. It's the tension between wanting to meet the desires of the press to know more and the public to know more, and what that was, I'm told, is not a detention area. That is a corridor or a walkthrough area that came—my understanding is something like this. When they're on the airplane, they wear earpieces because of the noise. You've ridden on these planes. They're combat aircraft. And we've all worn earpieces. It's no big deal.
There were a number who had tested—that were worried about tuberculosis. So in a number of instances, they were given masks for the protection of other detainees and for the protection of the guards. They come out of an airplane, and their back lowers, and they walk out.
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- ↑ See Mary Bosworth and Jeanne Flavin, Race, Gender, and Punishment: From Colonialism to the War on Terrorism, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2007, p. 207. They refer to the picture as showing the detainees as "kneeling in submission" and note that the goggles "brought allegations of torture," citing Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
