Continued Controversy Over Guantanamo Bay, Terrorists, and Tribunals
Late last week, one of the first terrorism suspects admitted to Guantanamo Bay reached a plea bargain with his military prosecutors, marking only the fourth conviction of a prisoner detained at the facility since 2002. Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi stood accused of serving as an accountant, supply chief, cook and bodyguard for al-Qaeda’s primary figure, Osama bin Laden. The defendant pleaded guilty to one count of providing material support for terrorism and conspiracy before a military judge, which action spared him from additional counts had the case gone to trial. While the terms of the plea deal were not released, this conviction is nothing short of monumental in the course of the history of the detention center.
The detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has come under intense scrutiny in international law and in both domestic and international politics. The aforementioned case lasted over six years without going to trial. In March, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, confessed mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks, had his trial postponed indefinitely. These delays are tied to President Obama’s difficulties in fulfilling his promise to close the facility. Frustrations are at an all-time high due to the fact that justice has not been served fully nine years after the attacks.
In an effort to deviate from the policies of the Bush administration, President Obama issued an executive order immediately after he took office announcing the prison’s closure. In late 2009, the White House acknowledged for the first time that it would miss its initial target date of January 2010 for completely shutting down the facility, citing various political and diplomatic hurdles. For fear of setting too lofty a goal in a tumultuous political environment, the Obama administration has refused to set a new concrete deadline for closing Guantanamo, though the President expressed hope that it could be done by the end of this year. What has not been widely publicized is that many officials are projecting that the use of the facility will continue even beyond the next presidential inauguration.
In May, Congress blocked access to funds requested by the Obama administration for closing down the detention center because no clear plan for closure was presented to the body. While the Obama administration initially tried to effect an obvious departure from the policy of the Bush administration, its failure to do so demonstrates its near total lack of understanding of the difficulties the process of shutting down the prison presents and, for that matter, of the entire War on Terror.
Since 2002, U.S. authorities have released more than 525 detainees from the Guantanamo Bay prison, but the detention facility still holds over 180 prisoners. Even though vague plans have been suggested to try between 30 and 40 detainees either at Guantanamo Bay or in U.S. federal courts, the administration will still hold roughly 50 detainees indefinitely and will probably either repatriate or resettle the remaining prisoners. This is a far cry from the original goal of creating a clean slate that President Obama promised.
Earlier, the Obama administration identified the empty maximum-security prison in Thomson, IL (about 150 miles west of Chicago) as a possible destination for the transfer of the prisoners. The White House blames Congress for failing to approve that option; Congress blames the White House for failing to present a responsible proposal for executing the transfer.
The simple fact is that there are no good options for President Obama to choose that are distinctly different from the policies of President Bush. The Illinois prison transfer plan, even if it (or a similar idea) were feasible, would do nothing by itself to resolve the trial-tribunal-detention dilemma; just moving enemy combatants to a new location does nothing to affect the justice process. What is clear is that in order for anything useful to be accomplished, the Washington blame game needs to halt immediately. It is time for the president to take responsibility for his Constitutional duty to execute the War on Terror, present a plan and a rationale, and make a procedural decision.
The Foreign Policy section of the Weekly Political Forecast is written by PAI’s Special Analyst for Foreign Affairs.
