The Senate’s draft of the fiscal 2017 defense policy bill opens the door for the Pentagon to begin designing and planning the construction of a facility in the U.S. to house Guantanamo Bay detainees.
The bill text, released late Thursday night, keeps many of the prohibitions in place against using funds to transfer detainees to the U.S. or build or modify facilities in the U.S. to detain those currently at Gitmo.
But it allows the defense secretary to use federal funds for designing and planning the construction of a U.S.-based detention center for those detainees that can’t be released. The Senate’s bill also allows detainees to be transferred to the U.S. temporarily for medical care.
The Senate is set to begin debate next week on the committee’s draft. Senators will then need to reconcile their bill with their House counterparts, whose version does not include any loosening of Gitmo transfer restrictions.
The president has made closing Guantanamo Bay a key goal of his presidency. Eighty detainees remain at Gitmo today.
The House Committee in Oversight and Government Reform will hold a hearing next week with analysts and former government officials to examine the alleged terrorists remaining at the detention center, and the national security implications of closing it.
