Congress Overwhelmingly Votes to Block
Guantánamo Closure
Nov. 10 2015, 5:52 p.m.
The Senate, by a veto-proof 91-3 margin, passed a
revamped defense spending bill on Tuesday that still contains provisions
intended to prevent President Obama from closing Guantánamo Bay prison.
The bill already passed the House 370-58, also more than enough votes to override
a veto, should it come to that.
Obama vetoed the bill last month, citing both funding
disagreements and language intended to ban all transfers of
Guantánamo prisoners to the United States, heighten the barrier to
shift them overseas, and prohibit moves to specific countries.
Since then, lawmakers essentially acceded to his
budget demands, cutting funding for sweetheart programs and authorizing $715
million to help Iraqi forces fight Islamic State rebels, among other changes.
But the Guantánamo provisions remain.
Obama cited the bill’s Guantánamo problems as
some of the most important in a rare veto-signing ceremony on October 23.
“This legislation specifically impeded our ability to
close Guantánamo in a way that I have repeatedly argued is counterproductive to
our efforts to defeat terrorism around the world,” he said. “Guantánamo is one of the premiere mechanisms for
jihadists to recruit. It’s time for us to close it. It is outdated; it’s
expensive; it’s been there for years. And we can do better in terms of keeping
our people safe while making sure that we are consistent with our values.”
What Obama does now is not clear. Even when not faced
with veto-proof majorities, he has caved to Congressional demands about
Guantánamo before, first threatening vetoes then signing the bills anyway.
Closing the controversial Cuban military lock-up has
been a goal for Obama since his first full day in office in 2009. He vowed by
executive order to close it within a year, but Republicans in Congress began
chipping away immediately.
Obama might get more committed with only a few months
left to go in his presidency, however. The White House has hinted at a last
ditch effort to close the prison and send detainees to a new facility in the
United States; representatives have been shopping around in Colorado, Kansas,
and South Carolina for a new prison site. Obama could go out on his own and try
to close the prison with a new executive order.
As former Obama administration lawyers Gregory Craig
and Cliff Sloan argued in a Washington Post opinion piece on Saturday, Obama doesn’t need Congress’s
permission.
“Under Article II of the Constitution, the president has exclusive
authority to determine the facilities in which military detainees are held.
Obama has the authority to move forward. He should use it,” they wrote.
Top photo: Guantánamo graffiti
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