The U.S. naval base was being made secure, the Times affirmed, in order to hold what Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had portrayed as ''hardened criminals willing to kill themselves and others for their cause.''

''Every time people have messed with these folks, they've gotten in trouble,'' Rumsfeld told reporters. ''And they are very well trained. They're very hardened. They're willing to give up their lives, in many instances.''

Evading the requirements of the Geneva Conventions by insisting that there was no doubt as to the detainees' status, the Pentagon firmly rejected calls made by Human Rights Watch and other groups to grant the detainees individualized hearings. Such hearings, in which the detainees' purported membership in Al Qaeda or the Taliban could be assessed - and the legal implications of that status determined - were dismissed as unnecessary