The Pentagon says it will meet Tuesday’s deadline for submitting a plan to Congress to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and move all the remaining prisoners, a spokesman said Monday.
“We understand that the deadline is tomorrow, and it’s our intent to meet it,” Navy Capt. Jeff Davis told reporters.
He noted that the plan will provide several options for closing the facility, including bringing remaining detainees to the United States, an idea that has met stiff opposition in Congress.
A provision in the annual defense policy bill passed last year requires the administration to tell Congress how it would close the prison and what it would do with the remaining inmates by Feb. 23.
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter last week said the Pentagon-drafted plan was at the White House, awaiting presidential approval.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest would not confirm whether or not the administration would meet the Tuesday deadline, and referred questions to the Pentagon. But he predicted that Congress would oppose any plan to close the prison, as they have in the past.
“We’ve seen members of Congress express their opposition to considering the kind of necessary steps to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay,” he said.
“That political opposition stands in stark contrast to the best advice that the commander in chief receives from our military,” he continued. “It stands in stark contrast to the view of both Democratic and Republican national security experts, including officials who served in senior positions in the Bush administration.”
Any plan the administration submits, he said, would “make a compelling case that closing the prison is clearly in our national security interest but also will reflect the need for the United States to be a good steward of taxpayer dollars.”
The military hasn’t transferred any terrorism suspects to the Guantanamo Bay facility since President Obama was elected as the administration has opted to try suspected terrorist in civilian courts.
There are currently 91 detainees in the Guantanamo Bay facility, compared to the 242 who were there when Obama first took office.
Obama’s plan will provide the details of moving the group to prisons in the United States. The possibilities include the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colo., the military prison in Leavenworth, Kan., and the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, N.C.
Ahead of Tuesday’s expected release of the plan, Republican senators from those three states, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Pat Roberts of Kansas and Cory Garnder of Colorado, said they remain adamantly opposed to transferring the prisoners to U.S. soil.
Doing so, they argued, would cost hundreds of millions of dollars and make the new locations targets for terrorist attacks.
The trio also reminded the White House that military leaders have repeatedly said they would not abide by any executive action from Obama to shutter the facility without Congress’ approval.
“Congress passed a law in November explicitly barring the transfer of Guantanamo prisoners to domestic soil,” the senators said. “Military leaders have repeatedly said they will not break the law to close the facility and relocate its prisoners on the mainland, which would be yet another of the administration’s misguided national security decisions.
“With ever-growing threats abroad and our increased efforts to combat ISIS, we need a place to house these terrorists, and that place is not in our communities, nor back on the battlefield,” the senators said.
“Our states and our communities remain opposed to moving the world’s deadliest terrorists to U.S. soil,” the senators said. “The terrorists at Guantanamo Bay are where they should remain — at Guantanamo Bay.”
Roberts is blocking Obama’s choice of Eric Fanning to become Army secretary until he receives assurance from the White House that it will not move forward with its plan to relocate the prisoners to Kansas.
