Obama makes progress toward closing Guantanamo

Associated Press

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba

Thirty-five-year-old Abdalmalik Wahab had been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for nearly 14 years without charge when he got some good news: The U.S. government was no longer interested in holding him.

A panel made up of representatives of six government agencies, including the Defense Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, determined Dec. 5 that Abdalmalik was “almost certainly” a member of al-Qaida at one point but it was no longer worth keeping him at the U.S. base in Cuba.

“This is a happy day,” he said in a statement released by one of his lawyers, David Remes, after the decision, “but the happiest day will be when I see my wife and daughter.”

He may get that chance, along with others who have been languishing at Guantanamo for years.

Despite the fiery rhetoric over Guantanamo in Congress, President Barack Obama has been making progress toward his goal of closing the detention center, reaching some notable milestones.

A surge of releases in recent months has brought the number of men in custody to 122, less than half the number when Obama took office, and the fewest since 10 days after the U.S. began shipping al-Qaida and Taliban fighters, shackled and clad in orange jumpsuits, to the base Jan. 11, 2002.

The number of prisoners cleared for transfer is now 54, with the remainder still facing indefinite detention.

One result of these efforts, according to military officials, is that Guantanamo is a quieter, more manageable detention center. Army Col. David Heath, who runs day-to-day operations inside the camps, says about 80 percent of the men now are deemed “highly compliant” with the rules to the point that they can live in communal conditions, confined in their cells for only two hours a day. The rest of the time they are free to eat together, pray, play soccer and computer games and watch satellite TV.

Some who have pushed to close the prison say fewer detainees may make that goal more realistic.

But there are plenty, including many Republican members of the new Congress, who don’t want to see the facility shuttered and are proposing an end to future transfers. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas said there were too many empty beds at Guantanamo. “We should be sending more terrorists there for further interrogation to keep the country safe,” he said, before adding that those there now can “rot in hell.”