Obama’s last big challenge

GUANTANAMO BAY: PLANS TO SHUT DETENTION CENTRE THWARTED FOR ALMOST EIGHT YEARS President argues the indefinite detention without trial harms US’s standing.

President Barack Obama presented a longshot plan on Tuesday to shutter the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, hoping to fulfi l an elusive campaign promise before he leaves office next year.

Describing the jail as a stain on America’s reputation and a catalyst for jihadists, Obama said “I don’t want to pass this problem on to the next president”.

“For many years, it’s been clear that the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay does not advance our national security. It undermines it,” Obama said from the White House’s Roosevelt Room.

He outlined a $290 million to $475 million (R4.45 billion to R7.3 billion) plan to move the 91 remaining detainees abroad and to one of 13 possible – unnamed – facilities in the United States.

Obama has tried for almost eight years to close the jail, but has been thwarted by Congress, the Pentagon, some in his own party and foreign allies who refuse to host the terror suspects abroad.

As a candidate and as president, Obama has argued that the indefinite detention without trial of Guantanamo inmates harms America’s image and its national security.

“It undermines our standing in the world,” he said. “This is about closing a chapter in our history.”

Lawmakers in the Republican-controlled Congress have blocked the most obvious path to closing the facility by banning the transfer of detainees to the United States, and there is little prospect of Republicans changing tack in the run-up to the election.

House Speaker Paul Ryan immediately rejected the proposal, saying bringing “Guantanamo terrorists” to the United States was neither smart nor safe. –