Even as controversy persists over the swap of five senior
Taliban leaders for army sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, the
Guardian has learned that the Obama administration is
considering the transfer of a new round of Guantánamo Bay
detainees.
In what would represent the first proposed transfers out of
Guantánamo since the May 31 announcement of the trade –
and, accordingly, a test of President Obama's commitment to
shuttering the detention center – the administration is set to
decide the fate of what is said to be a small number of
detainees, an internal debate that began months before it
faced an avalanche of congressional criticism around the
most recent Guantanamo release.
A final decision is not yet at hand, although the majority of
agencies involved in the discussions favor a transfer,
according to an administration official. The agencies normally
involved in such a discussion include the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence, the Defense Department, the
military's Joint Staff, the State Department and the Justice
Department.
There is apparently no consideration of releasing any of the
detainees outright. The detainees up for consideration during
this current round of deliberations are said to be few in
number and low-level in rank.
The Obama administration insists that it will reach a decision
on the detainees outside of any consideration of the Bergdahl
contretemps, but there is no timetable for arriving at a
decision, raising the prospect that the administration may
attempt to wait out the political firestorm.
Legislators of both parties have been incensed that the
Obama administration, ahead of trading Bergdahl for the five
Taliban leaders, did not provide Congress with the 30-day
notice legally required of any transfer from Guantanamo. A
Pew/USA Today poll released Monday found that a plurality
of 43% rejected the swap.
The White House has conceded violating the law but argues
that the exigencies of freeing the only US prisoner of the
Afghanistan war, including an apparent belief in the
deterioration of Bergdahl's health , justified the deal.
Both administration officials and congressional aides said that
legislators have rarely, if ever, raised objections to a
Guantanamo transfer during the classified notifications
process, despite the persistent public criticism around the
concept of closing the detention center.
But a staffer to the House Armed Services Committee said
that the lack of advance warning around the Taliban swap
has weakened the panel's trust in the Pentagon.
"When one of the laws we worked on together in a bipartisan
way that passed with an overwhelming bipartisan majority is
just ignored, that trust is certainly eroded. That hangs over
things," said the staffer, who declined to speak for the record,
citing the official secrecy surrounding Guantanamo
notifications to the Hill.
Laura Pitter, a senior national-security counsel with Human
Rights Watch, urged the administration to go through with
the transfers.
"There is no doubt this administration has taken politics into
consideration when making decisions about Guantanamo in
the past. But so many military leaders and experts now agree
that keeping Guantanamo open hurts US national security, it
would foolish to allow politicization of this exchange to slow
Guantanamo’s closure down now," Pitter said.
Obama publicly recommitted to emptying the Guantanamo
detention facility last year after congressional restrictions –
led by Republicans but with substantial Democratic support –
denied him the fulfillment of a major campaign promise.
Since then, his administration has transferred 14 detainees,
including the so-called "Taliban Five," and set up a new
quasi-parole process called a Periodic Review Board that
permits detainees to argue for their release. Guantánamo still
holds 149 detainees, the vast majority of whom have not been
charged with a war crime.
Administration officials, sounding a note of defiance, reject
the idea that the Bergdahl furor will case them to slow-walk
pending Guantánamo transfers.
"The return of Sgt Bergdahl is not a factor in future detainee
transfers from Guantanamo, since transfers are dependent
upon, among other things, our receipt of the necessary,
verifiable security assurances from potential willing host-
nations and the recommendation of our own internal, inter-
agency review (eg the PRB)," said Lieutenant Colonel Todd
Breasseale, the Pentagon's spokesman on detentions.
"We remain committed to the responsible closure of the
detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It remains
outrageously expensive and as the president has noted, exists
outside our best national security interests. However, until
we are permitted to close the facility – and to be sure, we are
making real progress on transferring those who are eligible –
we will continue to humanely safeguard all of the detainees
in our charge."
Even as the administration takes criticism for trading five of
the Guantanamo detainees presumed most dangerous, the
Bergdahl swap also opened it up for questions about why it
continues to hold relatively low-risk detainees. Fifty-six
Yemenis who remain at Guantánamo Bay, for instance, have
been deemed eligible for transfer.
"I think if there is any increased pressure to release detainees
it hasn’t come from this exchange specifically but rather from
the fact that this exchange has put a spotlight on true
desperation and despair of so many other detainees accused
of no wrongdoing and held without charge or trial for twelve
years now," said Pitter of Human Rights Watch.
Administration efforts to contain the controversy have not
worked thus far. A private briefing for Senators last week did
not defuse the debate. Several administration and intelligence
officials are scheduled to brief the Senate Armed Services
Committee in closed session on Tuesday ahead of Defense
Secretary Chuck Hagel's testimony before the House armed
services committee on Wednesday.
No comments:
Post a Comment