Ten More Detainees Transferred Out of Guantanamo Bay, 93 Remain

Polling from 2014 shows most Americans don’t want the detention center to close.

The Yemenis, all held for more than a decade without charge or trial, were part of a wave of releases that the Obama administration signaled would take place early this year as it prepares to give Congress a plan for closing the facility.

The Yemeni detainees have arrived in Oman, where they will be held until their return to Yemen, Reuters reports.

“We completed the transfer of 10 Yemenis – roughly 10 percent, that is, of the total remaining Gitmo population – to the government of Oman”, Carter told an audience at the USA military’s Southern Command, which oversees the military detention facility.

The Pentagon announced Thursday that 10 prisoners from Yemen have been released and sent to Oman, where they will be resettled. It followed the transfer of three detainees last week. “But ultimately, to accomplish the goal of closing it, we’re going to need Congress to remove some obstacles that have prevented it thus far”. His position is that it has outlived its objective and is costly to maintain, and referred to it in his State of the Union address Tuesday as “unnecessary, and it only serves as a recruitment brochure for our enemies”.

In December 2013, the now-retired Marine major general who helped establish the prison said Guantanamo should have never been opened, and called on the government to close the prison.

Mr Obama has faced resistance on the releases in the Republican-led Congress, where lawmakers particularly object to other facilities inside the United States.

Even detainees who have been recommended for transfer – meaning the Pentagon no longer believes the US has a compelling reason to keep them in the military prison – can remain at Guantanamo for years while the USA negotiates a transfer.

The next step, a White House plan to hold detainees in the United States, would be submitted to Congress soon, said National Security Council spokesman Myles Caggins.

This is the largest single transfer of prisoners from Guantanamo, correspondents say, and is a fillip for the president who began his first term of office in 2009 by promising speedily to close the centre.

“As the law stands now, the Department of Justice and the military may not, not can not but may not, send these individuals to anywhere in the United States”, Solis said.