Obama to release plan to close Guantanamo BayWASHINGTON President Obama will release a plan to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba on Tuesday, setting up a last-year confrontation with Congress about a campaign promise he made eight years ago.
Obama will deliver a statement on the plan from the White House at 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Monday that the Pentagon report "will make a compelling case that closing the prison is clearly in our national security interest, but also will reflect the need for the United States government to be a good steward of taxpayer dollars."
There are 91 detainees remaining in the prison; each one costs more than $3 million per year.
"There is far too much money that is spent to operate that prison when there are more cost-effective alternatives available. And we certainly would like to work with the Congress to make those alternatives a reality because we know that those alternatives don't weaken our national security. In fact, they strengthen it. They enhance it," Earnest said. "And it would take away by closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay a chief recruiting tool that we know is used by terrorist organizations about the world."
Guantanamo Bay, located on the eastern edge of Cuba, has housed prisoners taken captive in war on terror since 2002. Since it exists on a base on Cuban soil but held by the United States under a 113-year-old lease, the prisoners are in what some human rights organizations call a "legal black hole."
There were 242 detainees still in the Guantanamo Bay prison when Obama took office in 2009, down from a high of almost 700. That number has dwindled over the years as the Pentagon has transferred lower-risk detainees to other countries meaning that the prisoners who remain tend to be considered higher security risks.
Current law prohibits the president from transferring the Guantanamo Bay detainees to U.S. soil, where there are only a handful of maximum-security prisons deemed appropriate to house them. Congress also added a provision to the defense policy bill signed by Obama last year requiring the administration to put forward a plan for transferring the remaining detainees to prisons in the United States. Tuesday is the deadline for that report.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/02/23/obama-releases-plan-close-guantanamo-bay/80792250/
