Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spent a good part of his news conference yesterday attacking human rights group Amnesty International. He called the group’s description of the Guantanamo prison as a “gulag” “reprehensible.” Rumsfeld said “Most would define a gulag as where the Soviet Union kept millions in forced labor concentration camps, or I suppose some might say where Saddam Hussein mutilated and murdered untold numbers because they held views unacceptable to his regime. To compare the United States and Guantanamo Bay to such atrocities cannot be excused.” Amnesty issued a statement noting that in the early weeks of the Iraq war, Rumsfeld at least three times cited Amnesty’s account of human rights violations by Iraq’s then-president, Saddam Hussein. The head of Amnesty USA, Bill Schulz said “Twenty years ago, Amnesty International was criticizing Saddam Hussein’s human rights abuses at the same time Donald Rumsfeld was courting him.”