WASHINGTON: United States President Obama, hoping to finally meet his 2008 campaign pledge, sent Congress a plan on Tuesday to close the Guantanamo Bay prison and transfer up to 60 terrorism suspects to U.S. prison, senior administration officials said.
The Congress has been strongly opposed to closing the controversial prison at the U.S. Navy station in Cuba, and it’s unlikely that the White House proposal will gain much traction in an election year.
Obama was making a personal pitch to garner public support for the plan in an address Tuesday morning from the White House.
The prison is “a negative symbol,” said one aide, previewing Obama’s message. “It hurts us with our allies, it inspires jihadists and it’s time to bring this chapter of American history to a close.”
Closing the facility would save $65 million to $85 million a year, more than the cost of updating the U.S. prison, which has not been chosen, according to the officials, who requested anonymity to discuss the plan in advance of its public release.
The plan considers 13 different locations in the U.S., including seven federal prisons in Colorado, South Carolina and Kansas, as well as six on military bases. It doesn’t recommend a single site, however.
Obama sought to close the prison as one his first acts as president in 2009, but quickly ran into strong resistance in Congress and from some states. His new plan, in his final year in office, is his last chance to make good on his campaign promise.
Congressional leaders showed no signs of being willing to change the federal law that forbids any effort to transfer the detainees to the United States.
Lawmakers expressed concern on Tuesday about the plan’s lack of details. Most notably, it does not identify the proposed prison where the detainees would be transferred.
The cost estimates in the plan are approximate because Congress did not authorize a full engineering analysis of facilities that would need to be updated to hold the detainees, the officials said.
The one-time cost of closing the prison and transitioning to a U.S. facility would be $290 million to $475 million, the officials said.
