Guantanamo policy to get review
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration said Friday that it would study how it could best close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, renewing an effort to make good on a promise made more than 12 years ago by former President Barack Obama.
Emily Horne, the National Security Council spokesperson, said the process would involve “close consultation with Congress,” and participation by the Defense, State and Justice departments.
“There will be a robust interagency policy,” said Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary.
But the plan so far is short on detail. Key players have not been appointed to the task, and officials have yet to decide who would lead the effort and whether to revive the role of a special envoy at the State Department to help send prisoners to other countries.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said as part of his confirmation process that the Biden administration “does not intend to bring new detainees to the facility and will seek to close it.”
But the White House disclosure that it would conduct an assessment of the situation, which was earlier reported by Reuters, constitutes the first public statement that it would revive the interagency process that former President Donald Trump abandoned when he reversed Obama’s executive order intended to close the prison.
There are 40 prisoners at the detention center, all brought during the George W. Bush administration. The prison is staffed with an undisclosed number of contractors, civilian Pentagon employees and 1,500 U.S. troops, after a drawdown from about 1,800 troops during the Trump administration to save on costs that in 2019 exceeded $13 million per prisoner per year.
The Bush administration, which sent about 780 men and boys there, moved about 540 to other countries. The Obama administration reduced the prison population by another 200 through relocations to other nations. The Trump administration repatriated one man, a confessed al-Qaida terrorist, to Saudi Arabia.
Obama’s efforts to close the prison ran into intense opposition on Capitol Hill, especially among Republicans adamant that none of the wartime prisoners be transferred to facilities in the United States. The Obama administration had determined there were a few dozen prisoners it could not safely release.
Congress responded to Obama’s efforts by outlawing the transfer of any Guantanamo detainee to the United States for any reason — not for trial, imprisonment or medical treatment. Biden said as a candidate that closure would require the cooperation of Congress.
The Justice Department will be key to any assessment of how to proceed now because a major issue will be what to do about the conspiracy prosecutions of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men who are accused of helping to orchestrate the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The coronavirus pandemic has stalled what was already slow-moving progress in the case, and the start of a trial is at least another year away. The Obama administration had sought to hold the trial in New York, but Congress’ travel ban blocked it.
A leaked Biden administration transition plan showed that the White House for a time considered an executive order that included the goal of closing the detention center. But the administration has apparently abandoned that idea in favor of what Horne called a National Security Council-led “process to assess the current state of play that the Biden administration has inherited from the previous administration.”