WASHINGTON, DC - President Bush said Wednesday that he'd like to close the U.S. military-run prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where three detainees committed suicide Saturday. He said he was awaiting a Supreme Court decision about how terrorism suspects there could be tried.

"I'd like to close Guantanamo, but I also recognize that we're holding some people there that are darn dangerous and that we better have a plan to deal with them in our courts," Bush said at a news conference in the White House Rose Garden.

It was the second time in recent weeks that Bush has said he hoped to eventually shut down the prison, where 460 mostly Muslim foreigners are being held as unlawful enemy combatants.

The suicides on Saturday of two Saudis and a Yemeni, who hanged themselves with bedsheets, has increased pressure from groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to close the prison. European leaders renewed criticism of the facility and might press the point with Bush when they meet him in Vienna for a European Union summit on June 21.

The White House says detainees are treated fairly and humanely. All receive a review by military officers of their status as enemy combatants and are allowed to contest it. Lawyers for the detainees say they should be charged with crimes or released. Ten detainees have been charged with crimes.

"The government should be ashamed that it has kept people four years without charges," said Nancy Hollander, a defense lawyer for a detainee.

There have been 41 reported suicide attempts since the prison opened in January 2002. Periodic hunger strikes have taken place. One last month involved 75 detainees. Bush acknowledged that the prison has damaged the United States' reputation abroad.

"No question, Guantanamo sends a signal to some of our friends — provides an excuse, for example, to say the United States is not upholding the values that they're trying to encourage other countries to adhere to," he said.

He reiterated that the detainees are among the world's most dangerous terrorism suspects and that it is legal to hold them until the war on terrorism ends. Navy Rear Adm. Harry Harris, commander of Guantanamo, had termed the suicides an act of "asymmetrical warfare" against the United States.

Hollander, the attorney, called the description "despicable."

"The question to ask at some point is what would our government do if an American were being held in a foreign country under similar circumstances?" she said.

James Yee, the former Army chaplain at Guantanamo who was accused as a traitor and later exonerated, said the deaths more likely reflect the despair the inmates have over being held.

"This is a greater indication that these individuals were crying out for help," he said.
The suicides are the first at the prison. The military has said it will conduct a review of its operations there. An Afghan delegation returning from a 10-day visit to Guantanamo said Wednesday that conditions there were "humane."
Bush also said that "eventually, these people will have trials."

Military commissions for the 10 men charged were halted when Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who is accused of serving as a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden and delivering weapons to al-Qaeda, challenged the constitutionality of the military tribunal at which he was scheduled to be tried. The Supreme Court decision on the case is expected before the end of this month.

Mark Denbeaux, a law professor at Seton Hall Law School in New Jersey, said the president doesn't need the high court's ruling to either close the prison or allow detainees to be given hearings challenging the U.S. right to detain them without charges.

"Surely the president is powerful enough to give people he's held for four years a hearing," he said.