WASHINGTON – United States President Joe Biden wants to close the Guantanamo Bay prison for terror suspects before the end of his term, said the White House yesterday, echoing an unfulfilled campaign promise from Barack Obama’s administration.
Asked at a press conference about a possible closure of the prison in Cuba during Biden’s tenure, spokesman Jen Psaki said: “That certainly is our goal and our intention.”
She said the administration is working through the National Security Council to “assess the current state of play that the Biden administration has – well, we’ve inherited from the previous administration”.
In his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump expressed willingness to keep the prison open and “fill it with bad guys”. The Republican retained this position once elected.
However, some detainees were promised their release under his Democratic predecessor, Obama, but he never succeeded in working out a compromise with Congress. Biden was Obama’s vice-president.
The military prison accommodates inmates linked to the US “war on terror”, including Pakistani Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
It still houses around 40 detainees, 26 of whom are considered too dangerous to be released, but legal proceedings drag on due to the complexity of their cases.
After 9/11, the US army, under the presidency of George W. Bush, quickly built the detention centre on a naval base belonging to the US on the eastern tip of Cuba, on a small enclave ceded to American powers in 1903 to thank the country for its help in the war against the Spaniards. – AFP, February 13, 2021
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