[Leon Harris, Cnn Anchor:] Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, the number of Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners is rising at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Another 30 detainees arrived at Camp X-Ray yesterday. That brings the total number there to 50. Their arrival is being met by some sharp criticism over their treatment. Our CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr has more on that for us now Barbara.
[Barbara Starr, Cnn Correspondent:] Hi, Leon. Yes, there's quite a bit of news on that front. First, the international committee for the Red Cross is expected to visit the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay later this week, possibly as soon as Thursday, and these international Red Cross members will inspect the facility and verify and report on the conditions in which the detainees are being held. The U.S. is continuing to say that the detainees are receiving humane, if not comfortable treatment. And their latest evidence of that is of one of the detainees underwent a two-hour operation on Sunday for a gunshot wound that he had suffered over a month ago in Afghanistan. He had been wounded on his upper right arm, and Navy surgeons at U.S. Naval hospital at Guantanamo Bay performed an operation on him. The man was apparently in stable condition and awake prior to the surgery. They were able to explain to him exactly what they plan to do. But of course, he was held under very strict security conditions throughout the surgery. It is expected that another planeload of detainees will arrive in Guantanamo Bay, possibly as soon as tomorrow. And eventually, the Pentagon says it plans to move most of the detainees it's holding in Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay, where it says they will get food, medical treatment and humane treatment and be held in humane conditions. But it will all depend on what the International Red Cross says late this week as to whether this criticism continues Leon.
[Harris:] Barbara, yesterday we spoke briefly about the idea that Pentagon was still trying to work out the procedures for actually interrogating these people. Have they come any closer to coming up with a protocol yet.
[Starr:] No, and this is quite a confusing issue at the moment. They are shipping these detainees to Guantanamo, and no one here at the Pentagon appears ready to say exactly what will happen to them, and how long they will be held in detention. We are told they will begin to undergo more interrogation, but after that, nobody seems to know or is ready to say, at least, whether or not they will face military tribunals, under what conditions they will face military tribunals, or whether the Pentagon will attempt to send them back to their home countries, or simply hold them for an indeterminate period of time at Guantanamo Bay. I should add that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has said, he doesn't want to be in charge of a large prison population for months and months and months. He wants to hold as few people as possible, and he wants to concentrate on getting the really big fish, as it were, but we will have to see how it all sorts out.
[Harris:] You got it. Barbara Starr, thank you very much.