Plenty of room for ‘bad dudes’ at Guantanamo
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba: It’s been almost a decade since the last detainee landed at Guantanamo Bay. Most of the jail’s camps are now mothballed and the inmate population is down to just 41. But after years of shrinking operations at the notorious military prison, commanders are now bracing for a potential U-turn under the new administration of President Donald Trump.
Trump has said he wants to load up Guantanamo with “some bad dudes,” and a draft executive order circulated by US media this week suggests he is poised to indefinitely halt all detainee releases, including five men who had been cleared for transfer under his predecessor Barack Obama. “We are planning for all contingencies,” prison spokesman Captain John Filostrat said. “We are able to transfer detainees - or take more detainees - at a moment’s notice.”
Trump has also said it would be “fine” if US terror suspects were sent to Guantanamo for trial, and the executive order arguably opens the possibility that Americans, even those arrested in the United States, could end up here. Filostrat, who stressed he has not received any new orders, said Guantanamo could easily take about another 200 detainees if needed. Trump has provided few specifics about his Guantanamo plans, but the draft executive order says the facility is a “critical tool” in the fight against “radical Islamist groups.”
About 780 men have been held at Guantanamo since it opened in 2002, and most of the basic infrastructure that housed them remains. New inmates would be primarily housed in Camp 6, a mediumsecurity facility that opened in 2006 at a cost of $37 million, where the bulk of the current 41 inmates are detained. The facility sits close to the blue Caribbean coast and its outer perimeter is a chain-link fence covered with sniper netting and topped with razor wire.
Other new arrivals could be held in Camp 5, a detention facility that was closed last year as the population dwindled. It currently is being repurposed as a medical center. Filostrat said other prison camps could quickly be reactivated if need be, though most likely not the infamous Camp X-Ray.