A fact-finding team led by a senior Navy official was on the ground at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on Wednesday, checking the prison camps' compliance with the Geneva Conventions by order of President Barack Obama.

Obama set a 30-day deadline to review conditions at the controversial 7-year-old detention center, which he has ordered emptied of war on terror detainees by this time next year.

The Pentagon in turn dispatched Navy Adm. Patrick M. Walsh, vice chief of operations, to the camp, with a small team of fewer than a dozen fact finders.

''He is here,'' Navy Cmdr. Pauline Storum reported from the remote base. ``We're providing support as needed.''

Walsh, the Navy's No. 2 admiral, is a former pilot with the Navy's prestigious Blue Angels who flew combat missions in the 1991 U.S. war on Iraq. He has also studied International Relations at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

At issue is whether the prison camps, which today house 245 detainees meets Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, requiring humane detention.

Read the complete story at miamiherald.com