CE Week #18: “Obama’s Plan to Close Prison at Guantánamo May Take Year”
President-elect Barack Obama plans to issue an executive order on his first full day in office directing the closing of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, people briefed by Obama transition officials said Monday.
But experts say it is likely to take many months, perhaps as long as a year, to empty the prison that has drawn international criticism since it received its first prisoners seven years ago this week. One transition official said the new administration expected that it would take several months to transfer some of the remaining 248 prisoners to other countries, decide how to try suspects and deal with the many other legal challenges posed by closing the camp.
People who have discussed the issues with transition officials in recent weeks said it appeared that the broad outlines of plans for the detention camp were taking shape. They said transition officials appeared committed to ordering an immediate suspension of the Bush administration’s military commissions system for trying detainees.
In addition, people who have conferred with transition officials said the incoming administration appeared to have rejected a proposal to seek a new law authorizing indefinite detention inside the United States. The Bush administration has insisted that such a measure is necessary to close the Guantánamo camp and bring some detainees to the United States.
Mr. Obama has repeatedly said he wants to close the camp. But in an interview on Sunday on ABC, he indicated that the process could take time, saying, “It is more difficult than I think a lot of people realize.” Closing it within the first 100 days of his administration, he said, would be “a challenge.”
The president-elect drew criticism from some human rights groups Monday who said his remarks suggested that closing Guantánamo was not among the new administration’s highest priorities. But even if the detention camp remains open for months, the decision to address Guantánamo on the day after his inauguration seemed intended to make a symbolic break with some of the most controversial policies of the Bush administration.
Several national security and legal analysts have argued in recent weeks that Mr. Obama is in a delicate political position after having committed himself to closing the prison. Sarah Mendelson, the author of a report for the Center for Strategic and International Studies on how to close the prison, said Mr. Obama’s remarks on Sunday appeared intended to indicate the difficulty of the task, which she said it could take a year to complete.
“I thought he was trying to manage expectations of how quickly those detainees who remain can be sorted into two categories: those who will be released and those who will be prosecuted,” Ms. Mendelson said.
Aside from analyzing intelligence and legal filings on each of the remaining detainees, diplomats and legal experts have said the new administration will need to begin an extensive new international effort to resettle as many as 150 or more of the remaining men. Portugal and other European countries have recently broken a long diplomatic standoff, saying they would work with the new administration and might accept some detainees who cannot be sent to their home countries because of concerns about their potential treatment.
The transition official, who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the plans, said the administration expected to announce its Guantánamo plans next Wednesday.
Brooke Anderson, a transition spokeswoman, declined to comment on any plans, saying only, “President-elect Obama has repeatedly said that he believes that the legal framework at Guantánamo has failed to successfully and swiftly prosecute terrorists, and he shares the broad bipartisan belief that Guantánamo should be closed.”
In formulating their policy in recent weeks, Obama transition officials have consulted with a variety of authorities on legal and human rights and with military experts. Several of those experts said the officials had expressed great interest in alternatives to the military commission system, like trying detainees in federal courts, and appeared to have grown hostile to proposals like an indefinite detention law.
They also said the transition officials were intensely focused on new international efforts to transfer many of the detainees to other countries.
Several said the officials appeared concerned that a proposal for a new law authorizing indefinite detention would bring the new administration much of the criticism that has been directed at the Bush administration over Guantánamo. A former military official who was part of a series of briefings at the transition headquarters in Washington said the officials had spoken about the indefinite detention proposal as a way of creating a “new Guantanámo someplace else.”
“That is very much not the desire of the Obama team,” said the former military official, who insisted on anonymity because of his concerns about how the transition officials would react to public discussion of their comments.
Catherine Powell, an associate professor of law at Fordham, said transition officials appeared most interested at a meeting last month in showing international critics that they were returning to what they see as traditional American legal values.
“They are really looking for tools that we have in our existing system short of creating an indefinite detention system,” Ms. Powell said.
Mark P. Denbeaux, a Seton Hall law professor who has been a prominent lawyer for Guantánamo detainees, said that at a briefing he attended with senior officials of the transition last month the officials seemed to have decided to suspend the military commissions immediately.
“Their position is they’re a complete and utter failure,” Mr. Denbeaux said.
The Pentagon has been pressing ahead with plans to begin a trial on Jan. 26 of one of its high-profile suspects, a Canadian detainee named Omar Khadr. Mr. Khadr’s case has drawn wide attention, partly because he was 15 when he was first detained on charges of killing an American soldier in a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002.
Some human rights groups said Monday that they were alarmed by Mr. Obama’s vague timetable and lack of specifics in his remarks Sunday. They said they worried that the administration might yield to pressure to display its toughness in dealing with terrorism in its detention policies.
“The devil is in the details,” said Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, who has been pressing the new administration to publicly commit to immediately close Guantánamo.
Mr. Romero said he had grown concerned because transition officials had provided details of their plans for dealing with the economic crisis, but had yet to provide details for how they will close Guantánamo, which has brought worldwide criticism.
“Just like we need specifics on an economic recovery package,” Mr. Romero said, “we need specifics on a ‘justice recovery package.’ ”
This article is very interesting to me because it is one of the big issues Obama will have to deal with when he moves into the White House. Of course it will be a long process and people need to chill out when they say Obama is not taking it seriously enough. There are two sides to every controversy and you either have to extreme human rights activists or the “throw em’ in jail and let them burn in helll”-sort of people. If we decided to keep Guantánamo Bay open then you have the issues with the innocent people and rumors of harsh punishments. On the other hand, if we let them go then where do these terrorists go? Countries either will refuse to take them or they will kill them if they can get a hold of them. President Obama plans to close Guantánamo Bay and put these men on trial. Honestly, I think since Bush’s plan has not really worked out too well, then why not try something else? As Mr. Kautzman said, some of these men say they would rather die then be under Obama’s Imprisonment. These men should be given a trial, but not killed, they should be forced to suffer in imprisonment because of the choices they made.
Connection: I think this article relates to the issue on what human rights account for. Should these prisoners, who attempted terrorist actions, be given the same rights as a regular U.S. citizen? And for that matter, if U.S. soldiers are abusing these prisoners in unconstitutional ways, how shall that be dealt with?
Obama may have made a mistake by saying he will immediately close Guantanamo Bay. I do not doubt that he will fulfill his promise, but I agree with the author in saying that it will take some time. Having said that, those humanitarian folks deserve to be slapped so super hard. Patience is a virtue, I am sure the president agrees with many people in saying that the treatment received by the detainees there is nothing less than appalling, however, these fellows are just going to have to hold their horses. These things take time, its not as if the executive order will magically turn the detainees into the salt of the earth and turn them into upstanding American citizens. Something obviously needs to be done with these people, and the simply cannot all come here. The problem is that nations who should house these terrorists refuse to, and nations who want these terrorists will simply execute them without a trial. If these people were truly humanitarian they would think their words through a little more thoroughly. Whatever the solution is, I am certain that it will save these men from their cruel torture, which is obviously the main concern.
NO CREDIT: Connection
Guantanamo Bay has scandal written all over it. It seems like that place should have been shut down along time ago, although maybe some good has come out of it. Obama is very ambitious; he hasn’t even become president officially yet and he already has big plans. He wasn’t kidding when he called for change in the country. This is a very big issue that wasn’t necessarily dealt with in the election so it’s hard to say what the people of America feel about it, although it is very sensitive. It is interesting how Obama says he wants to shut down the detention camp but really has no intention in the immediate future to replace it. A possible problem that could arise is what if the nations that we are trying to ship off detainees to don’t want them, thus the camp can’t be shut down?
It is kind of strange how supporters are complaining about closing the camp taking a year. I think if Obama gets it shut down that fast that would be really good; while that may not be what he proposed at least it would happen. It is a process and time is needed to complete difficult tasks.
Connection: This article can be linked to the statement the presidency is not necessarily the power to command but the power to persuade. If Obama can persuade Congress to see that shutting down Guantanamo is the best way to avoid future conflicts and to stop inefficiency then he will get his way. He seems like a rather charismatic individual, so that may work in his favor.
I don’t really think that closing Guantanamo Bay is the right thing to do. First off, what is Obama planning on doing with the prisoners? If he brings them here and they happen to escape, horrible things could happen quite quickly. If he lets them go back to their country, it also might mean another terrorist attack. I didn’t mind the idea of making a new Guantanamo and moving them there, like it mentioned in the article, but it didn’t sound like that was really what they wanted to do either. Even if they did try to do that, where would they put it? Nobody wants a bunch of terrorists to be brought to their country. That’s why we made the prison where it is in the first place.
Maybe it wouldn’t seem so bad if we knew what Obama was planning on doing with all of the prisoners, but since he’s not telling anyone, it almost seems kind of suspicious. I’m just afraid that he is going to make a bad choice and it is going to turn out badly. Personally, I think it’s a bad idea to do anything with it because of all the bad things that could happen, but I doubt the new president-elect is going to listen to what I have to say. I just think he’s jumping into things too quickly.
Connection: In class we had a small discussion over the closing of Guantanamo Bay. If it happens, we aren’t going to want them. Their country either won’t want them or will REALLY want them. The only way to assure that they aren’t going to attack again is to either kill them or send them to another planet. Since the planet one is a little far-fetched, we would have to resort to killing, but a lot of people are against that because they want them to suffer. So, we’re back to sticking them in a prison in the middle of nowhere where we already are.
Of course shutting down Guantanamo Bay is going to take at least a year. Even I could have told them that. These things just aren’t done easily, and Guantanamo Bay will be even harder than most because of the prisoners that are being held there. The mere fact that Obama is going to sign the executive order to authorize its shut down is a major step though, and probably one that caused several foreign countries to revisit their decision to not accept any detainees, such as Portugal. The violation of human rights done at Guantanamo Bay, along with Abu Grab, badly tarnished the United States’ image abroad. Torturing someone, no matter who it is, is wrong. End of story. It shames me to think that it happened at our prisons. If Guantanamo Bay had not had this scandal, then it would be hailed as a brilliant idea to keep our prisoners off of U.S. soil. What amazes me, though, is when people, like the head of the ACLU, just think, and openly say, that Guantanamo Bay should be, and could be, shut down immediately. That’s a farce. No way is shutting down the prison going to last under a year, unless Obama gets several countries to step forward and agree to take them. The sooner people understand how complicated things like this are, the sooner everyone will be happier about the fact Guantanamo will not be closed immediately.
Connection: Obama’s authority as commander in chief. As commander in chief, Obama has control over Guantanamo, as it is a Navy base. By shutting down the prison, Obama does not have to go through Congress because control of the Armed Forces belongs to the president.
First off, I would like to point out that the closing statements from Mr. Romero sound largely ignorant towards the fact that the nation’s main concern right now IS the economy. For Obama to fulfill his promises and to close Guantanomo are indeed very important, but not nearly as urgent as the economy. Not every American thinks about Guantanomo the same way or with the same frequency as they do about the economy when they buy groceries, gas, or other daily necessities. I also believe that the statement about closing Guantanomo as a “symbolic break” to new changes and to a new administration by January 26th is important, but rather unrealistic. He will take office on the 20th, only giving him 6 days to accomplish such a large and legally binding task. If he can actually fulfill his 100 day promise, then the nation should be satisfied; after all not many presidents can even keep or rarely have kept their 100 day campaign promises.
I will agree with the many concerns though about Guantanomo just being shifted somewhere else, that it will essentially be the same thing but with a new location. I believe the system would best be serviced if they were all put on trial, to be found guilty or innocent, to death or to lifetime in jail, or set free if found innocent. No country wants to store a large group of potentially dangerous terrorists and no one wants to be responsible for the reputation of torture. There’s no place that anyone WANTS to put these people, so there is a lot of decisions to make in a very little timeframe. Nobody will ever be 100% satisfied with the decisions that are made, so Obama and his staff will just have to shoot for the best and most supported decisions possible.
Connection: Korematsu v. US, 1944
This Supreme Court hearing dealt with the treatment of Japanese-Americans in the internment camps and was largely brought upon by the support of the Human Rights group’s beliefs. This case decided upon the Japanese treatment and rights of those peoples, similarly the same way that people of Guantanomo should be treated. The case in 1944 that decided the treatment of prisoners should be legally applied in the same manner at Guantanomo. They may be suspected criminals, but they should be treated the same way as any other criminal in any of our other American jails. The criminals at Guantanomo are being held within a prison setting and should be treated as such, rather than with cruel and unusual punishment. If our country is going to pride itself on its values and justice system, than it should behave as such with the belief that all life is given fair and equal treatment.
First off, I think that the author of this article should have stated why Obama wishes to close this detention camp. What is so important about Guantánamo Bay? All I know is that Harold and Kumar’s second movie deals with that and they escape from it… but that is a different story. (haha)
If anything, we should keep this detention center because it is a place for terrorists to go. Oh, and Obama should not have said that he will quickly close this camp. Like it says in the article, there are many people there and they need to decide where they will go, or if they will be freed. I’m guessing this could possibly take years; it definitely won’t happen in the first one hundred days of Obama’s presidency.
CONNECTION: Hmm… I think that this article could in some way relate to the “honeymoon period” of the presidency. This period is supposed to be the time when the president can easily get things done because there is so much support from the people. However, Obama himself said that it would be difficult to make this change during the first one hundred days (honeymoon). So, if it does not happen that quickly, would it get done at all while the people slowly start to dislike our president more and more?
In response to Haley Nelson:
Haley, I agree that Obama might have been too ambitious. Though it is a worthy goal, I don’t think it was the best issue for him to tackle so early. Like you said, he isn’t even president yet. His expectations are very high. Having set such a lofty goal, it will be catastrophic should he fail. The public will see, though it isn’t necessarily right, a “typical” politician who says a lot, but does little. Obama can’t be seen as one of those people who say they will do something, but ends up failing.
There is also the factor that Guantanamo is so notorious. There is also a large amount of mystery surrounding the compound. People wonder, “what exactly goes on in there?” Though they have been told, there is a lot of distrust with the government, and people expect that there is more. A large amount of people will be paying strict attention to the proceedings – human rights activists; other politicians; and perhaps most important to Obama right now, the citizens of America themselves. Their support in these upcoming years is crucial!
I also wanted to point out the part of the article where it says that the prisoners will be sent to other countries…. SCARY!!! Which countries?!?! What treatment will they go receive?!?! That’s really terrifying…
In response to Haley
I don’t think I would go straight to calling Guantanamo Bay a scandal. There was obviously reasons for why it was set up. Like Kautzman said, the presidents know a lot that we do not know. However, I do think it has gotton out of hand. I am glad Obama is ambitious as well. I think it is time that GITMO was closed. I also agree that it is strange that human rights activists are complaining about the timetable for this. Obama should not have promised what he did, but people should cut him some slack. It is way harder than just shutting it down, there is over 200 people being detained. I also think that if it was closed within a year that would be reletively quick and a good thing.