The Gitmo prisoners captured in Afghanistan -- some of whom are associated with al-Qaida -- have been treated well for the most part, said Santorum, R-Penn Hills.

"We give them prayer mats, prayer shawls, prayer outfits and Qurans," Santorum said.

The U.S. spends five times more on specialty food for the 540 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay than Florida spends for its inmates, the senator said.

Santorum noted there have been "aberrations" of mistreatment at the "brand-new $100 million" facility.

Detained there "are suicide bombers and organizers of suicide bombers," Santorum said. They are "people who want to blow up aircraft in the air, take down buildings and destroy the U.S."

Santorum's comments come as Democrats in the U.S. Senate have called on President Bush to close the facility at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba and as Congress wrestles with what rights to afford the detainees. Santorum made the remarks on a visit to the state Capitol yesterday.

Congress is working toward defining the inmates' rights "short of legal status," Santorum said, noting that detainees have no rights under the Geneva Conventions.

"However, we have standards as the United States of America" and ethical considerations, he said.

"They are clearly enemies of the United States. Of 200 released from this facility, six have been recaptured on the battlefield. One headed up an operation to kidnap Chinese journalists," Santorum said. "We have an obligation to protect the public, and Guantanamo Bay is serving that purpose"...

He said he is not concerned about various polls showing him trailing likely Democratic challenger Robert P. Casey Jr. -- the state treasurer and son of a former governor.

"It's 17 months before the election," Santorum said. "It doesn't matter what the polls say at this point"...

In the aftermath of the release of an autopsy report this week on Terri Schiavo, Santorum told reporters he has no regrets about his outspoken opposition to removing the brain-damaged woman's feeding tube. Schiavo died in March. A medical examiner's report supported her husband Michael's contention that she was in a persistent vegetative state with irreversible brain damage.

"I don't have any regrets at all that I stood up for what I believed was right in defending a disabled person from being executed," Santorum said.

Philadelphia Inquirer columnist John Grogan wrote yesterday that Santorum, President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay owe Michael Schiavo an apology. Grogan put Santorum on the list for turning "a Florida fund-raising trip into an opportunity to pander to his conservative base outside Terri Schiavo's hospice."

Asked to respond to that column, Santorum said: "Typical -- that's how I respond to it," saying that it's part of a pattern in which the "mainstream media" ignore positive things about his record.

By Brad Bumsted, Pittsburgh Tribune Review,  June 18, 2005

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