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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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January 13th,
2009 - Obama’s Plan to Close Prison at Guantánamo May Take Year |
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Obama’s Plan to Close Prison
at Guantánamo May Take Year By William Glaberson & Helene Cooper New York Times January 13, 2009 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.’” Copyright 2009 The New York
Times Company External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/us/politics/13gitmo.html |