|
Eli
Lake
Column:
Military
Tells
Congress
It
Can't
Send
Gitmo
Detainees
to
U.S.
Eli
Lake
Bloomberg
View
February
16,
2016
Just
as
President
Barack
Obama
is
planning to
send
Congress
his
plan
to
close
the
Guantanamo
Bay
prison
this
year,
leaders
of
the
military
say
it
will
not
transfer
any
detainees
to
the
U.S.,
unless
the
law
prohibiting
such
transfers
is
changed.
Lt.
General
William
Mayville
Jr.,
the
director
of
the
Joint
Chiefs
of
Staff,
said
as
much
in
a
letter
to
Congress
last
week,
which
I
obtained.
Mayville's
letter
gets
to
the
heart
of
a
knotty
constitutional
issue
on
Guantanamo:
Does
President
Obama
have
the
authority
to
close
the
facility
without
the
consent
of
Congress?
Writing
to
16
House
members
who
served
in
the
military,
Mayville
writes:
"Current
law
prohibits
the
use
of
funds
to
'transfer,
release
or
assist
in
the
transfer
or
release'
of
detainees
of
Guantanamo
Bay
to
or
within
the
United
States,
and
prohibits
the
construction,
modification
or
acquisition
of
any
facility
within
the
United
States
to
house
any
Guantanamo
detainee.
The
Joint
Staff
will
not
take
any
action
contrary
to
those
restrictions."
[…]
Obama
has
transferred
151
detainees
since
2009
to
other
countries,
but
since
2010
Congress
has
prohibited
the
transfer
of
detainees
to
U.S.
territory.
The
remaining
91
detainees
at
Guantanamo
include
Khalid
Sheikh
Mohammed,
who
was
the
mastermind
of
the
9/11
attack,
and
other
top
al
Qaeda
planners,
like
Abu
Zubaydeh,
who
have
been
deemed
by
military
leaders
to
be
too
dangerous
to
send
to
other
countries.
Thomas
Joscelyn,
a
senior
fellow
at
the
Foundation
for
Defense
of
Democracies,
told
me:
"The
problem
has
been
that
you
don't
have
a
bunch
of
innocent
goat
herders
there.
You
have
a
number
of
individuals
who
pose
some
degree
of
threat."
Since
it's
too
dangerous
to
send
the
highest-risk
detainees
to
other
countries,
the
president
is
hoping
to
persuade
Congress
to
lift
the
restriction
on
sending
these
detainees
to
the
U.S.
Last
month,
Secretary
of
Defense
Ash
Carter
said
he
had submitted
a
plan
to
the
White
House
to
do
just
this.
“Not
everyone
in GTMO can
be
safely
transferred
to
another
country,
so
we
need
an
alternative,” he
said.
“I
have
therefore
framed
for
the
president
a
proposal
to
establish
an
alternative
location.
That
plan
will
propose
bringing
those
detainees
to
an
appropriate,
secure
location
in
the
United States.”
[…]
When
Obama
does
present
his
Guantanamo
plan
to
Congress,
it
will
be
an
important
moment
for
the
republic.
Obama
campaigned
in
2008
for
the
presidency
with
a
promise
to
curtail
his
predecessor's
expansive
interpretation
of
wartime
authorities.
During
his
presidency,
however,
he
has asserted
the
executive
branch's
authority
in
some
cases
to
override
the
instructions
of
Congress.
The
question
now
is
whether
Obama
will
break
his
campaign
promises
on
presidential
power
in
order
to
fulfill
his
campaign
promise
to
close
Guantanamo.
Read
Eli
Lake’s
full
column
HERE.
### |