WASHINGTON (AP) — As much as $170 million is needed to improve facilities for the troops stationed at the Guantanamo Bay detention center that President Barack Obama has marked for extinction, the top U.S. commander in South and Central America said Wednesday.

The head of U.S. Southern Command, Gen. John Kelly, told the House Armed Services Committee that upgrades to buildings including barracks and the dining hall for the American personnel assigned to the joint task force at the U.S. base in Cuba are badly needed. He described the living conditions at Guantanamo as not quite squalor but “pretty questionable.”