Gitmo Closure Deadline Passes, Obama’s 1st Post-Election Promise Broken
Local Editor, 22-01-2010
President Barack Obama's first moves when taking office last year was to pledge to the American public that the detention center at Guantanamo Bay would be closed within one year's time.
President Obama maintained that the facility "harms America's image" on the international stage.
Today that one year deadline came and went, and if you weren't paying close attention you might have missed it.
In November President Obama finally admitted that the deadline was not going to be met, and he still has offered no firm commitment for a future deadline. Last month, however, administration officials speculated that the facility couldn't be closed until late 2011 at the very earliest.
Yet even this speculative date seems to be falling by the wayside, as the president has stopped all transfers of detainees to Yemen, which will place nearly half of the detainees back into a state of legal limbo.
Meanwhile, a U.S. Justice Department-led task force has concluded that nearly 50 of the 196 detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be held indefinitely without trial under the laws of war, according to Obama administration officials.
The task force's findings represent the first time that the administration has clarified how many detainees it considers too dangerous to release but ‘unprosecutable' because officials fear trials could compromise intelligence-gathering and because detainees could challenge evidence obtained through coercion.
Human rights advocates have bemoaned the administration's failure to fulfill President Obama's promise last January to close the Guantanamo Bay facility within a year as well as its reliance on indefinite detention, a mechanism devised during George W. Bush's administration that they deem unconstitutional.
"There is no statutory regime in America that allows us to hold people without charge or trial indefinitely," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.
But the efforts of the task force, which this week completed its case-by-case review of the detainees still being held at Guantanamo Bay, allows the Obama administration to claim at least a small measure of progress toward closing the facility.
"We're still moving forward and in a much more deliberate and less haphazard manner than was the case before," said an administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the recommendations have not been made public. "All policies encounter reality, and it's painful, but this one holds up better than most."
The task force has recommended that Guantanamo Bay detainees be divided into three main groups: about 35 who should be prosecuted in federal or military courts; at least 110 who can be released, either immediately or eventually; and the nearly 50 who must be detained without trial.
President Barack Obama's first moves when taking office last year was to pledge to the American public that the detention center at Guantanamo Bay would be closed within one year's time.
President Obama maintained that the facility "harms America's image" on the international stage.
Today that one year deadline came and went, and if you weren't paying close attention you might have missed it.
In November President Obama finally admitted that the deadline was not going to be met, and he still has offered no firm commitment for a future deadline. Last month, however, administration officials speculated that the facility couldn't be closed until late 2011 at the very earliest.
Yet even this speculative date seems to be falling by the wayside, as the president has stopped all transfers of detainees to Yemen, which will place nearly half of the detainees back into a state of legal limbo.
Meanwhile, a U.S. Justice Department-led task force has concluded that nearly 50 of the 196 detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be held indefinitely without trial under the laws of war, according to Obama administration officials.
The task force's findings represent the first time that the administration has clarified how many detainees it considers too dangerous to release but ‘unprosecutable' because officials fear trials could compromise intelligence-gathering and because detainees could challenge evidence obtained through coercion.
Human rights advocates have bemoaned the administration's failure to fulfill President Obama's promise last January to close the Guantanamo Bay facility within a year as well as its reliance on indefinite detention, a mechanism devised during George W. Bush's administration that they deem unconstitutional.
"There is no statutory regime in America that allows us to hold people without charge or trial indefinitely," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.
But the efforts of the task force, which this week completed its case-by-case review of the detainees still being held at Guantanamo Bay, allows the Obama administration to claim at least a small measure of progress toward closing the facility.
"We're still moving forward and in a much more deliberate and less haphazard manner than was the case before," said an administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the recommendations have not been made public. "All policies encounter reality, and it's painful, but this one holds up better than most."
The task force has recommended that Guantanamo Bay detainees be divided into three main groups: about 35 who should be prosecuted in federal or military courts; at least 110 who can be released, either immediately or eventually; and the nearly 50 who must be detained without trial.
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