WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden will attempt to close the prison at the US base in Guantanamo Bay after a review process, and will resume a project begun under the Obama administration, the White House said Friday.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said it was the “intention” of the Biden administration to shut down the detention facility, something President Barack Obama promised to do within a year shortly after taking office in January 2009.
Psaki did not provide a timeline, telling reporters that the formal assessment would be “robust” and would require the participation of officials from the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice and other agencies not yet appointed under the new government.
“There are many players from different agencies that need to participate in this policy discussion about the steps forward,” she said.
Obama was met with fierce domestic political opposition when he attempted to close the detention center, a notorious symbol of the US fight against terrorism. Biden may have more leeway now that there are only 40 inmates left, and Guantanamo is drawing far less public attention, although his announcement has met with immediate criticism.
The US opened the detention center in January 2002 to detain people suspected of having links with Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. It became a source of international criticism of the mistreatment of prisoners and the long-term detention of people without charge.
The announcement of a closure plan was not unexpected. As a candidate, Biden had said he supported the closure of the detention center. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also said in a written statement confirming to his Senate.
“Guantanamo has provided us with the opportunity to conduct war detention to keep our enemies off the battlefield, but I think it is time to close the Guantanamo detention facility,” Austin said.
Of the 40 remaining inmates in Guantanamo, five were previously released for release through an intensive review process set up under Obama as part of the effort to close the detention center and transfer the remaining inmates to facilities in the US.
At its peak in 2003, the detention center at the naval base in southeastern Cuba held nearly 680 prisoners. Amid international outcry, President George W. Bush called it a “propaganda tool for our enemies and a distraction for our allies” and said he supported its closure but left it to his successor.
Under Bush, the US began attempts to prosecute some prisoners for war crimes in tribunals known as military commissions. It also released 532 prisoners.
Obama promised to close the detention center, while retaining the larger naval base, but met fierce political opposition over plans to prosecute and imprison men in the US and feared that returning others to their home countries would pose a security risk.
At least to some extent, that opposition persists. “The Democrats ‘obsession with bringing terrorists into Americans’ backyards is bizarre, misguided and dangerous,” said Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, after the White House announcement on Friday. “Just like with President Obama, the Republicans will fight tooth and nail against it.”
Obama argued that keeping the detention center was not only bad policy but also a waste of money, costing more than $ 445 million a year in 2016.
Under his rule, 197 were repatriated or resettled in other countries.
That left 41 under Trump, who at one point promised to ‘charge it up’ with some ‘bad guys’. He never made and approved a single release, a Saudi prisoner who reached a plea deal in his war crimes case.
Of those left in Guantanamo, ten men are on trial by the military commission. They include five men charged with planning and providing logistical support for the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The case has been pending preliminary investigation for years.
Human rights groups that have long advocated the closure of Guantanamo welcomed Biden’s announcement.
“For nearly two decades, the United States has denied justice to the hundreds of men the government has held indefinitely in Guantánamo Bay without charge or trial,” said Daphne Eviatar, director of the Security with Human Rights Program at Amnesty International. USA. “Forty men stay there today. It is long time to close it. “