Pentagon’s Guantanamo closing plan lays out costs, savings

“It’s, I think, ill-conceived”.

Obama made the announcement in a televised address from the White House on Tuesday, seven years after he vowed to permanently shutter the prison.

“I don’t want to pass this problem off to the net president, whoever it is”, he said.

Obama’s proposal ducks the thorny question of where the new facility would be located and whether Obama could complete the closure before he leaves office. “And he doesn’t seem to be interested in continuing to try”, said Ryan.

Obama noted earlier Republican support for closing Guantanamo Bay and pointed to convicted terrorists who are already being held in US maximum security prisons without incident. Many detainees have been on hunger strike for months to draw attention to their deteriorating conditions.

The president told reporters on Tuesday it undermined national security.

Closing Guantanamo Bay was one of Obama’s major promises in the 2008 presidential race.

Click through for more on the detainees being kept at the facility.

However, the president backed away on his campaign promise later on due to stiff opposition from Congress. “What we received today is a vague menu of options, not a credible plan for closing Guantanamo, let alone a coherent policy to deal with future terrorist detainees”, Republican Sen.

McConnell said Congress has expressed its views on Obama’s plan through multiple votes to prevent the transfer of terrorists to communities in the U.S.

According to the officials, the USA facilities would cost between $265 million and $305 million to operate each year.

Obama is seeking to either hand detainees over to third-party countries that are willing to take them, or transfer them to the U.S. soil.

A small number – those deemed too risky to release but too hard to prosecute – would be held in the United States.

“The politics of this are tough”, the president said Tuesday, noting that many Americans remain highly concerned about terrorism – and the prospect of holding terrorists prisoner here in the U.S.

The plan does not endorse a specific USA facility to house Guantanamo detainees.

Defense officials hope the plan will convince Congress to allow for the transfer of almost 60 detainees to the US, despite them repeatedly passing legislation which has banned any efforts in the past.

McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee, said his committee will “closely scrutinize and hold hearings on the details” of the plan. “I wanna see what he’s gonna recommend”.

The administration added it will need up to $475 million to carry out the entire plan, which mainly includes construction costs.

But the Republican-controlled Congress is deeply opposed and expected to block the move. The most critical of these steps is a provision of the law barring the president from using any funds to transfer detainees to the United States, or construct or modify any facilities in the United States to house them. Not only does the detention facility fail to work as intended, he argued, it also runs contrary to American values.