Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Tuesday that he supports the president’s plan to close Guantanamo Bay by the end of this administration, but that it may not be realistic given the large population of prisoners who can’t be released.
“If would be a nice thing to do and an important thing to do if we can do it, but we’ve got to be realistic about the people who are in Guantanamo Bay. They’re there for a reason,” Carter told service members via video based on a question from a sailor serving at Guantanamo Bay.
Carter said about half of the Guantanamo Bay population can be transferred to another country with security restrictions to ensure they don’t return to the battlefield. The other half, however, needs to be detained indefinitely because they pose too great a risk.
“If they’re not locked up in Guantanamo Bay, they need to be locked up somewhere. So we are looking at places in the United States, prisons and other places, to which these people can be moved,” Carter said.
Carter said it is “fine” if these prisoners remain at Guantanamo Bay, but that he would “prefer to find a different place for them,” not striking the same tone as the White House in the president’s determination to make good on a campaign promise to close the prison.
Defense Department teams have visited Fort Leavenworth in Kansas and plan to visit a military prison in Charleston, S.C., as well as some public prisons, to assess the cost of moving prisoners to the United States. Their findings will be included in a report to Congress, though members of Congress have already pushed back against the detainees being moved to their home state.
