On a visit to Camp X-Ray in Cuba yesterday, US Defence Secretary Mr Donald Rumsfeld insisted that the al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners being held behind razor wire there would not be given prisoner-of-war status.
Mr Rumsfeld, accompanied by four US senators, embarked on a tour of the facility and was to meet troops during his first trip to the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay since 158 captives were flown there from Afghanistan.
"They are not POWs; they will not be determined to be POWs," Mr Rumsfeld told reporters accompanying him.
He also said the purpose of his visit was not to judge how the Afghan fighters were being treated.
"I have absolutely full confidence in the way the detainees are being handled and treated," Mr Rumsfeld said. "I am not down there for that purpose. I am down there to talk to the troops, to thank them for what they are doing."
Some human rights groups and US allies have criticised the United States for its treatment of the detainees and for refusing to designate them as prisoners of war, which would give them certain rights under the Geneva Convention.
US newspapers reported this weekend that there was debate within President Bush's administration over whether and how the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war might be applied to the Afghan captives.
Vice-President Dick Cheney told ABC's This Week that all members of the administration agreed the fighters could not be classified as prisoners of war since they targeted civilians and did not represent the army of a state. But he said the State Department had raised questions about the relevant legal arguments.
"There is a category in the Geneva Convention for unlawful combatants and. . .the State Department argument is they ought to be treated within the Geneva Convention but under that section for unlawful combatants and therefore not be extended the rights of prisoners of war," Mr Cheney said.
The United States has another 302 detainees in custody in Afghanistan. It has temporarily halted prisoner transfers to Cuba, partly to allow expansion of the detention facilities.
The prisoners are held in 2.5 by 2.5 metre cells with concrete floors, wooden roofs and chain-link fence walls. A photograph released by the Defence Department showing the captives kneeling, shackled and wearing blacked-out goggles and masks stirred the criticism over their treatment.