U.S. President Barack Obama outlined his administration’s plan for closing the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, saying the facility “does not advance our national security, it undermines it.”
“If, as a nation, we don’t deal with this now, when will we deal with it?” Obama asked at the White House, after the U.S. Defense Department delivered the plan Tuesday to Congress. He appealed to Congress to be “on the right side of history” and asked that the nation act on the “lessons” learned over the past 15 years.
Republicans already have criticized the Pentagon’s proposal.
“Congress has left no room for confusion. It is against the law—and it will stay against the law—to transfer terrorist detainees to American soil,” Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said. “We will not jeopardize our national security over a campaign promise.”
“We are at war, yet incredibly the president is more focused on relocating and releasing enemy combatants than on detaining new ones, House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul added.
However, a senior administration official said closing the prison is a national security priority, adding that the facility has “inspired” jihadists and served as a recruiting tool for terrorists.
The President stressed the importance of closing the facility when he took office in 2009, but with less than a year left in his presidency, some 91 detainees remain. Obama said that when he took office there had been bipartisan support for closing the prison, but that over time lawmakers had become “worried about the politics” of it.
“It’s purely politically driven,” Gary Solis, a law of war professor at Georgetown University, told VOA. “There are individuals who are so opposed to the Obama Administration, and I believe Obama personally, that they are simply unwilling to participate in any activity that might further his goals.”
The Pentagon plan to close the facility includes discussion of 13 potential sites within the United States where the military could transfer a group of about 30 to 60 detainees. However, it does not recommend which U.S. site should be chosen. Potential sites include federal prisons in Kansas, Colorado and South Carolina, as well as military facilities.
Source-VOA
