U.S. prepares to ramp up transfers from Guantanamo

[alp227]

Source: Washington Post

The Obama administration is accelerating its efforts to shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention center, preparing to move dozens of inmates out of the prison in coming months in a step forward for President Obama’s redoubled attempt to achieve a core national security objective before he leaves office.

U.S. officials, describing administration plans to significantly reduce the Guantanamo population over the next six months, said they are in talks with a wide range of countries that they hope will accept all 64 detainees now approved for transfer.

President Obama has already spoken to fellow heads of state in an effort to arrange transfers, the officials said, one sign of the increased personal role they expect he will take as he inches closer to shuttering Guantanamo.

“He does not want to leave this to his successor,” Paul Lewis, the Pentagon’s special envoy for shutting down Guantanamo, said in an interview.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-prepares-to-ramp-up-transfers-from-guantanamo/2014/12/24/46685a86-8ab9-11e4-a085-34e9b9f09a58_story.html

[cosmicone]

1. Go Obama! n/t

[SoapBox]

2. GITMO...opening should be stuck to the legacy of Bush and his War Criminals Administration.

While President Obama should get "stuck" with being the one that shut down this money sucking mystery, prison camp.

I can't even imagine what this has cost, how many individuals were tortured, terrorized and died here...guilty of war crimes? Not guilty of war crimes? We will never know the truth.

Go President Obama!

[freshwest]

5. Plus a thousand.

[davidpdx]

3. Sounds like where he is headed toward is emptying it out and then leaving the pressure on Congress

to defund it once no one is there. If so, that would be a good tactic. Funding an empty prison wouldn't be a popular and it would make Congress look like the dipshits they are.

Obviously this next Congress isn't going to do shit about it, so we are going to have to wait a full 2 years before the next Congress is elected and in session to shut down Gitmo.

[freshwest]

4. Honestly, I wouldn't expect the Koch GOP to ever want to shut it down.

They'd like to stick it to the Cubans by keeping it open and maybe worse things than that when they take over all branches of government again. Yes, I've got my time table set for 2017 for when the SHTF.

They want to have a revolution and steal everything that isn't tied down during the chaos. I'm going to enjoy the illusion of sanity a while longer.

[hughee99]

6. If there's no one in it, he won't have too many issues getting it closed.

They'll re-purpose the buildings for something else and if they ever need to, they'll just re-open it. He's not going to be able to empty it out, though. There's a whole bunch of prisoners that are cleared for release as soon as possible and it's good that he's working to move them elsewhere, but there's still a bunch (around 75, I think) that haven't been charged with anything, let alone brought to anything resembling a trial, but the are being held because "we know they're really bad guys". The president won't release them, probably won't try them, and won't be able to transfer them, so the camp will be open the day he leaves office anyway.