RUMSFELD: And then they loaded them into, I believe, buses, and they took them down to a ferry, and they were still restrained—their hands and their feet restrained because of the dangers that occur during a period of movement. They put them on a ferry, if I'm not mistaken, and the ferry takes them across to the other side of the Guantanamo Bay.
They get off of the ferry and into a vehicle that then transports them to the detention center. They get out of that vehicle and in relatively small numbers are moved into this corridor that is a fenced area, and they are asked to get down on the ground. They get down on the ground, and they take off their ear pieces. They take off their masks. They do whatever they do with them before taking them in small numbers into the cells where they then would be located, at which point they are no longer in transit and, therefore, they are no longer restrained the way they were.
What happened was, someone took a picture and released it apparently, of them in that corridor kneeling down while their headpieces are being taken off and people drew a whole lot of conclusions about how terrible that was, that they're being held in that corridor.
Now, you know, if you want to think the worst about things, you can. If people want to ask questions and find out what is reasonably happening, it seemed to me not an unreasonable thing, when you're moving them from the vehicle they're in towards their cells to have them stop in some area prior to that and do what you do to get them in a circumstance that's more appropriate for being in a cell than how they were arranged in the buses, the ferries and the airplanes.
And I think you're quite right, I think that a lot of people saw that and said, "My goodness, they're being forced to kneel," which is not true.
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