President Obama may be thwarting his last shot to convince Congress to close the Guantanamo Bay prison by releasing more detainees without lawmakers’ input or approval.
A report that the Obama administration plans to release 10 more detainees some time in June sent shock waves through Capitol Hill Thursday. Those working toward a bipartisan compromise to shutter the facility were outraged at the news.
“It’s very disappointing,” Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. told the Washington Examiner. “They should give us a plan we asked for and there’s a proper way to do it. So it’s discouraging to hear that.”
Defense One, a defense trade publication, reported Thursday morning that the administration plans to move forward with the transfer of 10 more detainees in an undisclosed country or countries sometime in June. When asked about that report, a spokeswoman said the White House has a policy of not commenting on prospective detainee transfers.
Manchin has spent weeks working with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on language in a defense policy bill that would extend current restrictions on transferring detainees out of Guantanamo and reinstate others from 2013. But the measure also offers a glimmer of hope for Obama: a chance to close the prison if the administration submits a detailed plan to Congress on closing the facility.
Asked if the release of 10 more detainees would disrupt the delicate bipartisan alliance working to find a way to close Gitmo, Manchin said only: “It’s very discouraging.”
McCain indicated late Thursday that there might be another way to find a bipartisan way forward. He said he’s working with the White House on a new plan to close Gitmo, even as White House officials have been repeating their threat to veto McCain’s bill.
McCain is one of the president’s harshest critics on foreign policy, but the Arizona Republican who lost to Obama in the 2008 presidential election has long shared his desire to close Guantanamo Bay. He’s also has condemned many of the “enhanced interrogation techniques” that some of the detainees at the prison experienced.
McCain, the Armed Services Committee chairman, was even willing to engage in some political risk to help the president finally fulfill his 2008 campaign pledge to shut down Guantanamo Bay for good. McCain was banking on the support of all Democrats plus six Republicans to stop any GOP drive to strip his Gitmo provision from the defense authorization bill.
But the McCain-Manchin effort faced tough opposition from several vocal conservatives amid new concern over news that at least one of the five Taliban leaders released from Guantanamo in March 2014, in exchange for captured Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, had tried to return to action in Afghanistan.
Those concerns remain today. Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., on Thursday introduced an amendment to the defense authorization bill that would block any transfers of Guantanamo detainees to the United States.
And Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said the rise of the Islamic State and their attempts to encourage lone-wolf attacks in the United States make bringing the prison to the United States or closing it and releasing the all the prisoners out of the question.
Johnson told the Examiner Thursday that he is “highly concerned” about reports that the administration plans to transfer 10 more detainees to an unstated country.
“Islamic terrorists aren’t going away,” he said. “I think our first line of defense against Islamic terror is an effective intelligence gathering capability, and the most effective way to gather intelligence is to capture enemy combatants and detain them in a facility like Guantanamo. I’ve been there — it’s a first-class facility.”
The proposal also faced an uphill slog in the House, where many of the top Republicans on the Armed Services and Foreign Affairs panel support current restrictions on transferring detainees from the prison camp. The House version of the defense policy bill specifically bans transfers to any combat zone, a restoration of more stringent certification requirements Congress jettisoned in 2014 and 2015.
“It’s outrageous, yet not surprising, that the Obama administration is… considering bypassing Congress to release Guantanamo detainees,” said Rep. Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican and member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. “Those who are still left at Gitmo are the worst of the worst. Releasing them to other countries does not expunge their history of terrorist activity, nor does it guarantee that they won’t return to terrorism and endanger Americans.”
But McCain was willing to use his power as chairman to try to swing the House to his side – as long as Obama submitted a thorough proposal to close the facility that included outlining the legal challenges of bringing the remaining detainees to the United States.
His proposal also asked the administration to lay out what additional legal authorities would be needed in order to do so and how the military would deal with future combatants captured, not killed, under the law of war.
But after Defense One reported on the likely transfer of 10 more detainees, McCain, who was busy managing amendments to the defense policy bill, seemed surprised by the news.
“They are supposed to notify us and hopefully they are keeping with the law and we’ll have to look at these cases…,” he said, noting that he was currently preoccupied by the floor action and requesting time to look into the matter before commenting further.
Democrats who strongly support shuttering Gitmo argue there are too many GOP hurdles to overcome, and have pressed the president to move forward with as many transfers out of Guantanamo Bay as possible.
But of the 122 detainees remaining, the Pentagon has only cleared 57 for release or transfer to other countries.
Current rules require the Defense secretary to certify that any detainees released will not pose a threat to American citizens. Each case is reviewed by the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, Justice and State, along with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel early this year suggested that administration officials pressured him to agree to an increased pace of detainee transfers. He told CNN in early February, as he was preparing to leave the top Pentagon post, that “not everyone at the White House has agreed with me” about detainee releases.
At the confirmation hearing for Ashton Carter to replace Hagel, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., and other Republican senators extracted a promise from the then-defense secretary nominee that he would not bow to pressure to release or transfer detainees if the risk was too great.
“I call it straight. I have an obligation under the law with regard to the risk posed by detainees and I intend to discharge that responsibility in a very straight-up way,” Carter said.
He also promised he would abide by the law requiring Congress to be informed of any transfers.
