Obama’s bid to close Gitmo falters
The president has called closing Guantánamo a “national imperative,” arguing that it fuels anti-American sentiment and wastes money.
Washington — President Barack Obama is enjoying a winning streak lately, with the Supreme Court reaffirming his signature health care law and Iran agreeing to curbs on its nuclear program. But one longstanding goal continues to bedevil him: closing the wartime prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The administration’s fitful effort to shut down the prison is collapsing again. Ash Carter, in his first six months as defense secretary, has yet to make a decision on any newly proposed deals to transfer individual detainees. His delay, which echoes a pattern by his predecessor, Chuck Hagel, last year, is generating mounting concern in the White House and State Department, officials say.
Last week, Obama’s national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, convened a Cabinet-level “principals committee” meeting on how to close the prison before the president leaves office in 18 months. At that meeting, Carter was presented with an unsigned National Security Council memo stating that he would have 30 days to make decisions on newly proposed transfers, according
to several officials familiar with the internal deliberations.
But the meeting ended inconclusively. Carter did not commit to making a decision on pending transfer proposals by a particular date, including the repatriation of a Mauritanian and a Moroccan. Nor was it clear whether he accepted the 30-day deadline, those officials said.
The approval process is complicated by statutes restricting the transfer of detainees. They ban bringing detainees to a prison inside the United States and require the defense secretary to notify Congress, 30 days before any transfer, that its risks have been substantially mitigated.
The law effectively vests final power in the defense secretary and makes him personally accountable if something goes wrong.
“The chances of getting it done on Obama’s watch are getting increasingly
slim,” said Robert M. Chesney, a University of Texas law professor who worked on detainee policy for the administration in 2009.
“Whatever hope there is depends on quick progress in transferring as many detainees as possible,” he said. “But there is still going to have to be a deal with Congress for the remainder for long-term custody in the United States.”
Obama has called closing Guantánamo a “national imperative,” arguing that it fuels anti-American sentiment and wastes money.
Lisa O. Monaco, Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, said in a written statement that Obama remained “steadfast in his commitment” to close the prison.
“This is a goal that the entire national security team is working together to fulfill — from the White House to the Departments of Defense, State and Justice as well as the intelligence community,” she said. “The safety of Americans is our first priority, and each transfer decision involves careful vetting and negotiation of detailed security arrangements. These deliberations take time because these are important decisions.”
Officials say that interagency tensions with Carter have not reached the same levels as they did by last fall with Hagel, who eventually resigned under pressure. At the end, Hagel cleared a backlog of proposed deals, leading to more than two dozen transfers between November and January.
The last of them was a group of four Yemenis who were resettled in Oman. That group was the first part of a 10-detainee deal, and Carter, in June, permitted an additional six Yemenis to go, completing the deal with Oman. Carter has approved no other transfers.
The Guantánamo population is now 116 detainees, of whom 52 are recommended for transfer if security conditions can be met. Most have been held for about 13 years. Most of the 52 lower-level detainees are from Yemen; because it is in chaos, the U.S. government is trying to resettle them, not repatriate them.