PETA, the animal rights group known for splashing fake blood on fine furs, wants to set up an exhibition on the site of the Pentagon's prison camps at Guantánamo after President Barack Obama makes good on his promise to rid it of terrorism suspects.

''We envision the Guantánamo Bay Empathy Exhibit as an ideal home for . . . a display that reminds viewers that suffering is suffering, no matter who the victim is,'' Tracy Reiman, vice president for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, wrote to a senior Obama administration official this week.

The prison camps are widely condemned for alleged human rights and international law abuses, despite Pentagon protests that its detention is safe and humane.

PETA spokesman Michael Lyubinsky said the offer was serious. The exhibit, he noted, includes a panel that ``juxtaposes a picture of a sealer clubbing a baby seal with a photo of a police officer clubbing a civil rights protester.''

The idea would be to let visitors ``explore ways . . . to promote nonviolent and non-exploitive relationships with all the living beings in this diverse world -- regardless of race, religion, ability, gender or species.''

Unclear is who besides U.S. service members, their families, and contract workers would be able to visit the site, which is a largely off-limits 45-square-mile U.S. base in southeast Cuba.

The group, which claims two million members worldwide, made the offer to U.S. Ambassador Daniel Fried, the State Department's official assigned to find nations abroad to take some of the 241 war-on-terror detainees at Guantánamo.

Reiman wants to permanently install the group's traveling Animal Liberation Project inside some of the cells, once they are emptied.

Obama ordered a Cabinet-level task force to empty the cells by Jan. 22, 2010, to try to improve America's reputation around the world.

A State Department spokesman said Fried had been traveling with Obama and it was not known if he had received the letter.

Fried, assistant secretary of state for European Affairs, is awaiting the nomination and confirmation of his successor before taking up his new full-time duties.

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