[Vision2020] Obama Preparing Order to Close Gitmo

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of the Army Times at:

http://www.ArmyTimes.com
 
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Obama preparing order to close Gitmo
By Lara Jakes
   
WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama is preparing to issue an 
executive order his first week in office — and perhaps his first day — to 
close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, according to two 
presidential transition team advisers.

It’s unlikely the detention facility at the Navy base in Cuba will be 
closed anytime soon. In an interview last weekend, Obama said it would 
be “a challenge” to close it even within the first 100 days of his 
administration.

But the order, which one adviser said could be issued as early as Jan. 20, 
would start the process of deciding what to do with the estimated 250 al-
Qaida and Taliban suspects and potential witnesses who are being held 
there. Most have not been charged with a crime.

The Guantanamo directive would be one of a series of executive orders 
Obama is planning to issue shortly after he takes office next Tuesday, 
according to the two advisers. Also expected is an executive order about 
certain interrogation methods, but details were not immediately available 
Monday.

The advisers spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not 
authorized to speak publicly about the orders that have not yet been 
finalized.

Obama transition team spokeswoman Brooke Anderson declined comment Monday.

The two advisers said the executive order will direct the new 
administration to look at each of the cases of the Guantanamo detainees to 
see whether they can be released or if they should still be held — and if 
so, where.

Many of the Guantanamo detainees are cleared for release, and others could 
be sent back to their native countries and held there. But many nations 
have resisted Bush administration efforts to repatriate the prisoners back 
home. Both Obama advisers said it’s hoped that nations that had initially 
resisted taking detainees will be more willing to do so after dealing with 
the new administration.

What remains the thorniest issue for Obama, the advisers said, is what to 
do with the rest of the prisoners — including at least 15 so-called “high 
value detainees” considered among the most dangerous there.

Detainees held on U.S. soil would have certain legal rights that they were 
not entitled to while imprisoned in Cuba. It’s also not clear if they 
would face trial through the current military tribunal system, or in 
federal civilian courts, or though a to-be-developed legal system that 
would mark a hybrid of the two.

Where to imprison the detainees also is a problem.

Obama promised during the presidential campaign to shut Guantanamo, 
endearing him to constitutional law experts, civil libertarians and other 
critics who called the Bush administration detentions a violation of 
international law.

But he acknowledged in an interview Sunday that the process of closing the 
prison would be harder and longer than initially thought.

“That’s a challenge,” Obama said on ABC’s “This Week.” “I think it’s going 
to take some time and our legal teams are working in consultation with our 
national security apparatus as we speak to help design exactly what we 
need to do.

“But I don’t want to be ambiguous about this,” he said. “We are going to 
close Guantanamo and we are going to make sure that the procedures we set 
up are ones that abide by our constitution.”

President George W. Bush established military tribunals to prosecute 
detainees at Guantanamo. He also supports closing the prison, but strongly 
opposes bringing prisoners to the United States.

Lawmakers have moved to block transfer of the detainees to at least two 
potential and frequently discussed military facilities: an Army prison at 
Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. A Marine Corps 
prison at Camp Pendleton in Southern California also is under 
consideration, a Pentagon official said.

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., said Monday that “it’s hard to show why terror 
suspects should be housed in Kansas.”

“If the holding facility at Guantanamo Bay is closed, a new facility 
should be built, designed specifically to handle detainees,” Brownback 
said in a statement.

A Pentagon team also has been looking at how to shut Guantanamo and move 
its detainees, but spokesman Bryan Whitman did not immediately know Monday 
whether it was completed.

The executive order marks only a first step at what is likely to be a long 
legal process. Still, American Civil Liberties Union legislative director 
Caroline Fredrickson called it “extremely meaningful” even if the 
Guantanamo prison can’t be closed immediately.

“It’s clear that there is a process of time that will be necessary to 
close it properly, to make sure that human rights and respected and 
security is protected,” Fredrickson said. “But the fact that it’s set in 
motion is extremely good news.”

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Barack the House, Moscow!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNle_402RY0

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
 
"For a lapsed Lutheran born-again Buddhist pan-Humanist Universalist 
Unitarian Wiccan Agnostic like myself there's really no reason ever to go 
to work."

- Roy Zimmerman


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