Obama's Plans to Close Gitmo

by Damozel | Though he plans to issue on his first full day in office the executive order that will ultimately shut down Guantanamo Bay, the actual process is likely to take a year or so.  (NYT)   Transition officials evidently say that plans are on track to suspend immediately the Bush administration’s military commissions system for trying detainees. (NYT)  But then what happens?

[E]xperts say it is likely to take many months, perhaps as long as a year, to empty the prison that has drawn international criticism since it received its first prisoners seven years ago this week. One transition official said the new administration expected that it would take several months to transfer some of the remaining 248 prisoners to other countries, decide how to try suspects and deal with the many other legal challenges posed by closing the camp....

Brooke Anderson, a transition spokeswoman, declined to comment on any plans, saying only, “President-elect Obama has repeatedly said that he believes that the legal framework at Guantánamo has failed to successfully and swiftly prosecute terrorists, and he shares the broad bipartisan belief that Guantánamo should be closed.”  (NYT) 

Tired though I already am of the word "bipartisan," I admit to feeling little surprise that some are predicting that administration of the process may take several months.  There are a lot of things that have to be decided.  If Bush's process is abandoned, Obama's people need to decide what should take its place.

In formulating their policy in recent weeks, Obama transition officials have consulted with a variety of authorities on legal and human rights and with military experts. Several of those experts said the officials had expressed great interest in alternatives to the military commission system, like trying detainees in federal courts, and appeared to have grown hostile to proposals like an indefinite detention law.

They also said the transition officials were intensely focused on new international efforts to transfer many of the detainees to other countries....

Catherine Powell, an associate professor of law at Fordham, said transition officials appeared most interested at a meeting last month in showing international critics that they were returning to what they see as traditional American legal values.

“They are really looking for tools that we have in our existing system short of creating an indefinite detention system,” Ms. Powell said.

Mark P. Denbeaux, a Seton Hall law professor who has been a prominent lawyer for Guantánamo detainees, said that at a briefing he attended with senior officials of the transition last month the officials seemed to have decided to suspend the military commissions immediately.

“Their position is they’re a complete and utter failure,” Mr. Denbeaux said. (NYT) 

On ABC's "This Week," Obama said --- and he's not wrong ---

"It is more difficult than I think a lot of people realize and we are going to get it done, but part of the challenge that you have is that you have a bunch of folks that have been detained, many of whom who may be very dangerous who have not been put on trial or have not gone through some adjudication"....

Obama also said he was trying to develop a process that "adheres to rule of law" but "doesn't result in releasing people who are intent on blowing us up."

"I think it's going to take some time and our legal teams are working in consultation with our national security apparatus as we speak, to help design exactly what we need to do," Obama said.

"But I don't want to be ambiguous about this. We are going to close Guantanamo and we are going to make sure that the procedures we set up are ones that abide by our Constitution," he said.  (CNN)

Hilariously, Bush said:

"I strongly disagree with the assessment that our moral standing has been damaged," Bush said. "It may be damaged amongst some of the elite." (CNN)

Because:  exactly.  Among intelligent people who understand concepts such as "rule of law" and believe in America's duty to lead by example, our moral standing has been damaged.  Even realizing that Republicans have done their all to turn "elite" into a term of opprobrium, it still means what it always meant.

Anyway:  Lara Jakes at Associated Press provides an overview of the issues which Obama must decide, including the difficult problem of process.

Many of the Guantanamo detainees are cleared for release, and others could be sent back to their native countries and held there. But many nations have resisted Bush administration efforts to repatriate the prisoners back home. Both Obama advisers said it's hoped that nations that had initially resisted taking detainees will be more willing to do so after dealing with the new administration.

What remains the thorniest issue for Obama, the advisers said, is what to do with the rest of the prisoners — including at least 15 so-called "high value detainees" considered among the most dangerous there.

Detainees held on U.S. soil would have certain legal rights that they were not entitled to while imprisoned in Cuba. It's also not clear if they would face trial through the current military tribunal system, or in federal civilian courts, or though a to-be-developed legal system that would mark a hybrid of the two.

Where to imprison the detainees also is a problem.

Jeralyn, never a great fan of Obama's, doesn't see why there is a need for any delay.

Vague and indefinite orders with no bite won't cut the mustard. As I wrote earlier, this isn't rocket science. It's as easy as 1-2-3:

Send home those who can go home
Secure safe haven for those who cannot, and
Charge those who can be charged and try them in ordinary federal criminal court.

Steve Benen says:

The challenge, of course, is dealing with the mess Bush created by identifying terrorist suspects that can't be tried in U.S. courts because the evidence against them was obtained through torture. It's an untenable dynamic -- Obama doesn't want to release potentially dangerous detainees who are national security threats, and he doesn't want to charge them based on inadmissible evidence that was abused of the suspects. It's quite a legacy Bush is leaving behind for Obama to clean up.

That said, the sooner Obama gets to work on this, the better. Issuing an order on Guantanamo on his first day would, at a minimum, send the right signal, and get the process -- a process -- underway.

BooMan points out:

Many of the prisoners cannot be sent home because their home governments would mistreat them. Third-country sponsors will have to be found to host these people. Others prisoners will need to be prosecuted. And a small number are probably unsafe to release and impossible to convict due to their treatment by American officials. This last group is the one that the Obama Team is refusing to detain indefinitely (under a new law) or to prosecute through the Military Commissions Act. But it's not clear just what they will do with them.

I don't support releasing them, but I am also glad they will not be put through the flawed Military Commissions process and that they will not be detained without process. I hope the Obama Team can come up with a solution we can be proud of, or at least live with. There are no good options that I can think of.

For progressives impatient to see the promised changes implemented sooner rather than later, The Talking Dog has some solid advice.

For those who rignt now insist on being too critical of Barack Obama (sometimes, even m'self)... I beg you... please recognize that he didn't cause any of this. He'll have quite a job to do to even begin to clean all of this up. So... let's all get behind him, and give him whatever he needs to get it done. And let's be careful out there.

Memeorandum has more blogger round-up.

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