On Tuesday, U.S. President Barack Obama has made his final request to Republican-led congress to close the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba. The president firmly urged the lawmakers to consider his proposal to transfer the 9-11 detainees from Guantanamo to an unidentified facility in the United States for indefinite custody or trial.
Obama requested for a fair hearing to close Guantanamo despite the opposition's stand not to transfer the detainees to the U.S. soil. The president said that he doesn't want to pass the issue to the next president who will be replacing him in January. The Pentagon-authored plan includes 13 possible sites that will house about 30 to 60 prisoners in maximum-security prisons, Reuters claims. The U.S. law prohibits transfer of the 9-11 prisoners, but Obama is pursuing what he had pledged during his 2008 candidacy.
"For many years it's been clear that the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay does not advance our security," Obama said, The Guardian reports. "It undermines it. Fifteen years after [the September 11 attacks] we're still having to defend a facility where not a single verdict has been reached in those attacks. Not a single one. When I first ran for president it was widely recognized that this facility needed to close ... There was bipartisan support to close it."
Currently, there are 91 detainees at Guantánamo Bay, including 35 who are due for transfer to the State Department. Obama's critics claimed that the president is urging lawmakers to move Guantanamo prisoners to the U.S. because of his personal wish to fulfill his promise at all cost. They pointed out that the president is not really bothered about the risks linked to moving the detainees from Guantanamo.
