President Obama charged Thursday that history will “cast a harsh judgement” on the U.S. for failing to permanently close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay during his administration, and blamed “politics” for that failure in a letter he sent to House Speaker Paul Ryan on his last full day in office.
“There is simply no justification beyond politics for the Congress’ insistence on keeping the facility open,” he charged. He said lawmakers “who obstruct efforts to close the facility, given the stakes involved for our security, have abdicated their responsibility to the American people.”
Fifty-nine detainees remained at the island prison in Cuba at the beginning of this month, almost 200 fewer than when President George W. Bush left office in 2009. After more than a dozen last-minute transfers by the current administration, 41 prisoners will remain when President-elect Trump enters the White House on Friday.
Obama accused those who support keeping Guantanamo open of behaving senselessly, He claimed the prison is a “drain on military resources [and] harms our partnerships with allies and countries whose cooperation we need against today’s evolving terrorist threat.”
“By any measure, the costs of keeping it open far exceed the complications involved in closing it,” the president said.
Obama urged Congress to close the prison and “permit more of our brave men and women in uniform serving at Guantanamo Bay to return to meeting the challenges of the 21st century around the globe.”
“Guantanamo is contrary to our values and undermines our standing in the world, and it is long past time to end this chapter in our history,” he wrote.
The president’s letter comes just days after House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., said his committee had received new intelligence suggesting that recently released inmates at Guantanamo have attempted to return to the extremist groups to which they belonged prior to being captured.
