Guantánamo must close

In 2008, then presidential hopeful Barack Obama promised to end what he called the “sad chapter of American history” that is Guantánamo Bay. Today, as his tenure ticks down to a close, the uncertain fate of 91* men remains at the hands of an idle Congress. 

Guantánamo, supposedly a necessary security containment of the world’s most dangerous enemies, has become a surreptitious cycle of extreme torture outside the law for questionably selected prisoners — including a 13-year-old boy and 89-year-old man. It must be closed.

The United States must close Guantánamo Bay and transfer the remaining inmates to maximum-security federal prisons. Of the remaining, 34 men have already been cleared for release by the government. Furthermore, the U.S. has admitted to lacking evidence to prosecute 28 prisoners but claims they are “too dangerous to release.” This is unacceptable as a country that continually reprimands other countries for imprisonment without due process of law. It currently costs $120 million annually to maintain these cleared prisoners in Guantánamo, but it would cost $1.2 million annually to maintain 34 prisoners found guilty in a federal prison. But Guantánamo’s faults lie far beyond fiscal matters. Over 200 F.B.I. agents have reported inhumane torture.

Serious concerns about torture have risen from inside the C.I.A. itself. When C.I.A. interrogators questioned the legality of the brutal torture, senior C.I.A. personnel insisted they move forward because it had been vetted by the highest levels of the organization. One interrogator, Sergeant Erik Saar, confessed on “60 Minutes” that C.I.A. personnel were told that Guantánamo prisoners aren’t prisoners of war and therefore not covered by the Geneva Convention. In other words: there were no limits to torture. Many prisoners were conscripts forced against their will to fight for the Taliban, others were individuals picked up by the Northern Alliance, whom Saar confesses, “[the C.I.A. had] no idea why they were there […] what their connections were to terrorism.”