Then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wrote: “When asked by journalists [on December 27, 2001] why Gitmo [Guantanamo] was chosen to house detainees, I described it as ‘the least worst place.’ …It was chosen because it was far from the ever-shifting battlefield in Afghanistan, where U.S. troops had to guard against the possibility of enemy assaults and attempted escapes. It was controlled entirely by the United States military, even though it was not then subject to American legal jurisdiction. It had some existing infrastructure, including a naval hospital. Its use would not further complicate diplomatic relations with a host nation, since our relations with Fidel Castro’s Cuba were poor at best.”
– Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown, Page 566