The Gitmo infamy

Who is responsible for the failure to shut down the notorious Guantanamo Bay detention centre? Is it the Pentagon, Congress or the US president himself? Closing down the centre was one of the key pledges of US President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. Three years later the prison is still very much active. From a high of over 640 detainees, the prisoner population at Guantanamo Bay has shrunk to around 107 . But releasing or transferring any of the prisoners has become a more tedious process as years have progressed. Between 2002 and 2008, around 520 detainees were released or transferred to other countries. Of the around 242 that remained, only about 131 were released or transferred in the next seven years which coincided with Obama’s presidency. The Republican-dominated Congress made the procedure to release or transfer Guantanamo detainees much more tedious after around 30 percent of those released allegedly rejoined anti-US activities. A new report now indicates that the Pentagon has been creating bureaucratic hurdles that can mean that the release or transfer of a detainee deemed to pose no threat to the US can be delayed for up to seven years. Its tactics range from refusing to release medical records to restricting foreign countries ready to take the prisoners into their own territory.

The prison at Guantanamo Bay, which continues to operate outside the parameters of international law, continues to serve as proof of the injustices committed in the name of the war on terrorism. Lawyers for some of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, however, maintain that Obama is using the Pentagon and Congress as scapegoats to hide his own reluctance to close the prison. Eighty-six of the detainees still held at the prison could be freed or transferred to other countries without the interference of Congress. Over half of these had been cleared for release in 2009. Many of the review processes instituted have simply not been backed up by political will. This is despite the fact that the continued operation of the prison has been noted to be a recruiting tool for terrorists. The trouble is that despite a political consensus in Washington that is paying lip service to shut down the prison, there is sufficient opposition to the proposal in the places which matter most. The verbal promises to shut the prison must be negotiated with tougher hawks in the administration. Some things are changing with the Pentagon banning the use of psychiatrists at the site after the issue became controversial last year. Seventeen detainees are also set for release this month. But it seems unlikely that Obama will be able to close down the modern world’s most notorious prison before his term concludes.