WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden will try to close the prison at the US base in Guantanamo Bay after a review process, resuming a project started under the Obama administration, the White House said on Friday.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said it was the Biden administration’s “intention” to close the detention center, something President Barack Obama pledged to do a year soon after taking office in January 2009.
Psaki did not give a deadline, telling reporters that the formal review would be “robust” and would require the participation of officials from the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice and other bodies that have not yet been appointed to the new administration.
“There are many participants from different agencies who need to be part of this political discussion about the steps to take,” she said.
Obama faced intense domestic political opposition when he tried to close the detention center, a notorious symbol of the US fight against terrorism. Biden may have more room for maneuver now that only 40 prisoners remain and Guantánamo attracts much less public attention, although his announcement has drawn some immediate criticism.
The United States opened the detention center in January 2002 to keep people suspected of having links to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. It has become a source of international criticism about the mistreatment of prisoners and the prolonged imprisonment of people without charge.
The announcement of a closure plan was not unexpected. Biden said as a candidate he supported the closure of the detention center. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said this also in written deposition for confirmation in the Senate.
“Guantánamo has given us the ability to enforce war detention laws in order to keep our enemies off the battlefield, but I believe it is time to close the Guantánamo detention center,” said Austin.
The remaining 40 prisoners at Guantánamo include five who were previously released for release through an intensive review process created by Obama as part of the effort to close the detention center and transfer the remaining prisoners to US facilities.
At its peak in 2003, the Navy base detention center on the southeastern tip of Cuba held about 680 prisoners. Amid international outrage, President George W. Bush called it “a propaganda tool for our enemies and a distraction for our allies” and said he supported his closure, but left it to his successor.
Under the Bush administration, the United States began efforts to prosecute some war prisoners in courts known as military commissions. It also freed 532 prisoners.
Obama promised to close the detention center, retaining the largest Navy base, but he faced strong political opposition because of plans to prosecute and arrest men in the United States and concerns that the return of others to his homeland would pose a security risk. .
To some extent, at least, this opposition remains. “The Democrats’ obsession with bringing terrorists to American backyards is bizarre, misguided and dangerous,” Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said after the White House announcement on Friday. “As with President Obama, Republicans will fight tooth and nail.”
Obama argued that maintaining the detention center was not just bad policy, but a waste of money, which cost more than $ 445 million a year in 2016.
Under his administration, 197 were repatriated or resettled in other countries.
This left 41 under the command of Trump, who at one point promised to “load everything” with some “bad guys”. He never did and approved a single release, a Saudi prisoner who had reached a judicial settlement in his war crimes case.
Of those who remain in Guantánamo, 10 men face trial by a military commission. They include five men charged with planning and providing logistical support for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The case has been mired in pre-trial proceedings for years.
Human rights groups that have long advocated the closure of Guantánamo 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 Guantanamo Bay, without charge or trial,” said Daphne Eviatar, director of the Amnesty International’s Human Rights Security Program. “Forty men remain there today. It’s past time to close it. “