Guantánamo Bay ‘to close a year after Barack Obama’s deadline’

Alex Spillius
London Telegraph
December 25, 2009

The president has already acknowledged that he will miss his Jan 22, 2010 target date, set within days of taking office, mainly because of difficulties relocating detainees cleared for release overseas.

But his administration is now facing difficulties wrestling $150 million ($90 million) from Congress for the federal government to buy the Thomson Correctional Centre from the state of Illinois.

[efoods]Republicans and conservative Democrats have argued that moving them to the US mainland will create an unnecessary target for terrorists. The administration envisages sending several dozen detainees to Thomson either for military commissions or for detention without trial under a legal framework that has yet to be finalised.

Mr Obama’s aides have underlined that he remains determined to close the detention centre because of its poor reflection on US justice and its effectiveness as a “recruiting tool” for al-Qaeda.

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This article was posted: Friday, December 25, 2009 at 9:04 am

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