US President Barack Obama on Tuesday presented a long-shot plan to shutter the Guantanamo Bay detention center, hoping to fulfill an elusive campaign promise before he leaves office next year.
Describing the jail as a stain on the US’ reputation and a catalyst for Muslim extremists, Obama said: “I don’t want to pass this problem on to the next president.”
“For many years, it’s been clear that the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay does not advance our national security. It undermines it,” Obama said from the White House’s Roosevelt Room.
He outlined a US$290 million to US$475 million plan to move the 91 remaining detainees abroad and to one of 13 possible — unnamed — facilities in the US.
Obama has tried for almost eight years to close the jail, but has been thwarted by US Congress, the Pentagon, some in his own party and foreign allies who refuse to host the terror suspects abroad.
Obama has long said that the indefinite detention without trial of Guantanamo inmates harms the US’ image and its national security.
“It undermines our standing in the world,” he said. “This is about closing a chapter in our history.”
Lawmakers in the Republican-controlled Congress have blocked the most obvious path to closing the facility by banning the transfer of detainees to the US, and there is little prospect of Republicans changing tack in the runup to the November presidential election.
US House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan immediately rejected the proposal, saying bringing “Guantanamo terrorists” to the US was neither smart nor safe.
“It is against the law, and it will stay against the law, to transfer terrorist detainees to American soil,” he added.
Obama appealed for the closure plan to be given “a fair hearing, even in an election year.”
However, Republican US presidential hopeful Senator Marco Rubio doubled down on opposing it, promising to increase the Guantanamo population if elected.
“Not only are we not going to close Guantanamo — when I am president, if we capture a terrorist alive ... they are going to Guantanamo and we are going to find out everything they know,” he said.
Obama has also faced opposition from within his own administration, with the Pentagon accused of slow-pedaling transfers and overstating closure costs. The president could still try to force the closure through an executive order, but such a move would expose him to accusations of ruling by decree.
Obama received strong backing from one prominent Democrat, presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton.
“Closing Guantanamo would be a sign of strength and resolve,” she said, urging Congress to implement the plan “as quickly and responsibly as possible.”
Her campaign also pointed to her efforts to help close the facility while serving as US secretary of state.
The Guantanamo Bay closure plan, which took months to produce, offers no specifics on the potential location of a US facility.
Obama has long said that many Guantanamo prisoners should be transferred overseas and some should be tried by military courts.
A small number — those deemed too dangerous to release but too difficult to prosecute — would be held in the US.
Human rights groups worry this would only extend detentions without trial and create a “Guantanamo North.”
The plan says a US facility would save money over time. It costs about US$455 million per year to run Guantanamo, and a US site would reduce that amount by up to US$180 million.
Most of the savings would come from a decrease in the number of troops guarding the reduced population on the US mainland, although it could cost up to US$475 million in one-time expenses to move the men and build or update a facility to hold them.
Efforts to transfer prisoners overseas have been stymied by unrest in Yemen — a likely destination for many — and by recidivism among those already released.
Still, US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter has in recent weeks signed off on a flurry of transfers, and last month, the prison’s population dropped below 100 for the first time.
Today, 91 inmates remain. Of them, 35 have been approved for release. The rest face ongoing, indefinite detention.
Perhaps the most notorious prisoner is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who along with four other defendants is charged with plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Guantanamo opened in January 2002 on a US naval base on a coastal spit of land in southeastern Cuba leased from Havana under a treaty dating back to 1903.
It was set up after the 2001 attacks by then-US president George W. Bush’s administration to deal with “enemy combatants” denied many US legal rights.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in