Divided lawmakers weigh future of Guantanamo Bay prison
By Catherine Buchaniec, Medill News Service
Dec 7, 09:24 PM
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday held its first hearing since the Obama administration on closing the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, with experts and lawmakers sharply disagreeing over what to do about the remaining detainees.
“Whatever the intentions, no one today can seriously argue that the military commissions in Guantanamo have been anything but a failed experiment,” said Brig. Gen. John Baker, the chief defense counsel for the military commissions who is retiring at the end of the year.
Nearly two decades since the creation of what had been constructed as a temporary holding facility for prisoners of the war on terror, 39 men remain indefinitely detained.
Of those still held, 27 have never been charged with a crime and 13 have been cleared for transfer or release to another country. Some detainees were previously subject to the intelligence community’s then-secret torture program, described as “enhanced interrogation.”
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2021/12/07/divided-lawmakers-weigh-future-of-guantanamo-bay-prison/
