Published on Portside (https://portside.org)
Special
Report: Pentagon Thwarts Obama's Effort to Close Guantanamo
December 29, 2015
Charles Levinson and David Rohde
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Reuters
WASHINGTON
In
September, U.S. State Department officials invited a foreign delegation to the
Guantanamo Bay detention center to persuade the group to
take detainee Tariq Ba Odah to their country. If they succeeded,
the transfer would mark a small step toward realizing President Barack Obama's
goal of closing the prison before he leaves office.
The foreign
officials told the administration they would first need to review Ba Odah's
medical records, according to U.S. officials with knowledge of the episode. The
Yemeni has been on a hunger strike for seven years, dropping to 74 pounds from
148, and the foreign officials wanted to make sure they could care for
him.
For the
next six weeks, Pentagon officials declined to release the records, citing
patient privacy concerns, according to the U.S. officials. The delegation, from
a country administration officials declined to identify, canceled its
visit. After the administration promised to deliver the records, the delegation
traveled to Guantanamo and appeared set to take the prisoner off U.S. hands,
the officials said. The Pentagon again withheld Ba Odah's full medical file.
Today,
nearly 14 years since he was placed in the prison and five years since he was
cleared for release by U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic officials, Ba
Odah remains in Guantanamo.
In
interviews with multiple current and former administration officials involved
in the effort to close Guantanamo, Reuters found that the struggle over Ba
Odah's medical records was part of a pattern. Since Obama took office in
2009, these people said, Pentagon officials have been throwing up
bureaucratic obstacles to thwart the president's plan to close Guantanamo.
Negotiating
prisoner releases with the Pentagon was like "punching a pillow,"
said James Dobbins, the State Department special representative to
Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2013 to 2014. Defense Department officials
"would come to a meeting, they would not make a counter-argument," he
said. "And then nothing would happen."
Pentagon
delays, he said, resulted in four Afghan detainees spending an additional four
years in Guantanamo after being approved for transfer.
In other
cases, the transfers of six prisoners to Uruguay, five to Kazakhstan, one to
Mauritania and one to Britain were delayed for months or years by Pentagon
resistance or inaction, officials said.
To slow
prisoner transfers, Pentagon officials have refused to provide photographs,
complete medical records and other basic documentation to foreign governments
willing to take detainees, administration officials said. They have made
it increasingly difficult for foreign delegations to visit Guantanamo, limited
the time foreign officials can interview detainees and barred delegations from
spending the night at Guantanamo.
Partly as a
result of the Pentagon's maneuvers, it is increasingly doubtful that Obama will
fulfill a pledge he made in the 2008 presidential election: to close the
detention center at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Obama criticized
President George W. Bush for having set up the prison for foreigners seized in
the "War on Terror" after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S.,
and then keeping them there for years without trial.
When Obama
took office, the prison held 242 detainees, down from a peak of about
680 in 2003. Today, with little more than a year remaining in his presidency,
it still holds 107 detainees.
Pentagon
officials denied any intentional effort to slow transfers.
"No
foreign government or U.S. department has ever notified the Department of
Defense that transfer negotiations collapsed due to a lack of information or
access provided by the Department of Defense," said Pentagon spokesman
Gary Ross, a U.S. Navy commander.
Myles
Caggins, a White House spokesman, denied discord with the Pentagon. "We're
all committed to the same goal: safely and responsibly closing the detention
facility," Caggins said.
Former
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said in an interview that it was natural for
the Pentagon to be cautious on transfers that could result in detainees
rejoining the fight against U.S forces. "Look at where most of the
casualties have come from -- it's the military," Hagel said.
The
Pentagon's slow pace in approving transfers was a factor in President Obama's
decision to remove Hagel in February, former administration officials said. And
in September, amid continuing Pentagon delays, President Obama upbraided
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter in a one-on-one meeting, according to
administration officials briefed on the encounter.
Since then,
the Pentagon has been more cooperative. Administration officials said they
expect to begin transferring at least 17 detainees to foreign countries in
January.
Military
officials, however, continue to make transfers more difficult and protracted
than necessary, administration officials said. In particular, they cite General
John F. Kelly, in charge of the U.S. Southern Command, which includes
Guantanamo. They said that Kelly, whose son was killed fighting the Taliban in
Afghanistan, opposes the president's policy of closing Guantanamo, and that he
and his command have created obstacles for visiting delegations.
Kelly
denied that he or his command has limited delegation visits. "Our staff
works closely with the members of Naval Station Guantanamo Bay and Joint Task
Force Guantanamo to support the visits of all foreign delegations," he
said in a written statement, "and have never refused or curtailed one of
these visits."
Even if
Obama manages to transfer all low-risk detainees to other countries, closing
Guantanamo won't be easy. Several dozen prisoners considered too dangerous to
release would have to be imprisoned in the U.S., a step Republicans in Congress
adamantly oppose because, they say, it would endanger American lives.
In a press
conference earlier this month, Obama said he still hoped to strike a deal with
Congress. He added, however, that he reserved the right to move the prisoners
to the U.S. under his executive authority.
The Bush
administration faced no political opposition on transfers and was able to move
532 detainees out of Guantanamo over six years, 35 percent of whom
returned to the fight, according to U.S. intelligence estimates. The Obama
administration has been able to transfer 131 detainees over seven years, 10
percent of whom have returned to the fight.
PRIORITY
FROM THE START
Two days
after Obama was sworn in as president in 2009, he signed an executive order
mandating an immediate review of all 242 detainees then held in
Guantanamo and requiring the closure of the detention center. A year later, a
task force that included the Defense Department and U.S. intelligence agencies
unanimously concluded that 156 detainees were low enough security threats to be
transferred to foreign countries.
Members of
Congress, meanwhile, seized on reports that transferred detainees had returned
to the fight to demand that Guantanamo remain open.
Source URL: https://portside.org/2015-12-29/special-report-pentagon-thwarts-obamas-effort-close-guantanamo
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