WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden will try to close the U.S.-based Guantanamo Bay prison after a review process, with the resumption of a project launched under the Obama administration, the White House said Friday.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said it was the Biden government’s “intention” to close the detention facility, something President Barack Obama promised to do within a year shortly after his January 2009 took office.
Psaki gave no timeline and told reporters that the formal review would be ‘robust’ and that officials from the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice and other agencies not yet appointed under the new administration would participate. .
“There are a lot of players from different agencies who need to be part of this policy discussion on the steps forward,” she said.
Obama faced intense domestic political opposition when he tried to close the detention center, a notorious symbol of the American fight against terrorism. Biden may have more room now that there are only 40 prisoners left and Guantanamo attracts far less public attention, although his immediate criticism of his announcement has been drawn.
The U.S. opened a detention center in January 2002 to detain people suspected of links to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. It has become a source of international criticism over the mistreatment of prisoners and the lengthy imprisonment of people without charge.
The announcement of a closure plan was not unexpected. As a candidate, Biden said he supported the closure of the detention center. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin also said this in written testimony for his confirmation from the Senate.
“Guantanamo has given us the ability to stop laws to keep our enemies off the battlefield, but I believe it’s time for the detention facility in Guantanamo to close,” Austin said.
The 40 remaining detainees in Guantanamo include five previously released for an intensive review process created under Obama as part of the effort to close the detention center and transfer the remaining detainees to facilities in the US.
At its peak in 2003, the detention center at the naval base on the southeastern tip of Cuba held nearly 680 prisoners. Amid international outrage, President George W. Bush calls it “a propaganda tool for our enemies and a distraction for our allies” and says he supports its closure, but leaves it to his successor.
Under Bush, the U.S. began efforts to prosecute some prisoners for war crimes in tribunals known as military commissions. It also released 532 prisoners.
Obama has promised to close the detention center while retaining the larger naval base, but has faced fierce political opposition over plans to prosecute and imprison men in the U.S. and concerns about the return of others to their homeland would pose a security risk .
To some extent, that opposition remains. “The Democrats ‘obsession with bringing terrorists to Americans’ backyards is bizarre, misleading and dangerous,” Senator John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, said after the White House announcement Friday. “Just like with President Obama, Republicans will fight it tooth and nail.”
Obama argued that maintaining the detention center was not just a bad policy, but a waste of money, which in 2016 cost more than $ 445 million a year.
Under his administration, 197 were repatriated or relocated to other countries.
That left 41 under Trump, who at one point pledged to ‘make bad’ with ‘bad guys’. He never did a single release, a Saudi prisoner who reached a plea deal in his war crimes.
Of those living in Guantanamo, ten are being tried by military commission. It includes five men charged with planning and supporting the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The case has been caught in pre-trial detention for years.
Human rights groups that have long campaigned for the closure of Guantanamo have welcomed Biden’s announcement.
“For nearly two decades, the United States has denied the hundreds of men detained by the government in Guantánamo Bay indefinitely, without charge or trial,” said Daphne Eviatar, director of the Security with Human Rights program at Amnesty International USA. “There are still forty men there today. It’s been a long time since I closed it. ”