Six detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, including two alleged Osama bin Laden bodyguards, have been transferred to Oman, the Pentagon said Saturday.
The terror-related detainees are all from neighboring and embattled Yemen. They departed Friday from the U.S. detention center, at a Naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, created in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks to get terror-suspects off battlefields.
This is the first time in roughly the past five months that Guantanamo suspects have been transferred, as Congress considers new restrictions on such moves.
President Obama campaigned in 2008 to close the facility. The new transfers mark the departure of more than half of the 242 detainees who were at the facility when Obama was sworn into office in 2009. The number is now 116.
National Security Council spokesman Ned Price on Saturday repeated the Obama administration’s argument that keeping open the facility weakens national security by draining resources, damages U.S. relations with key allies and partners and emboldens violent extremists.
“As the president has repeatedly made clear, the administration is determined to close the” facility, he said. “We are taking all possible steps to reduce the detainee population at Guantanamo and to close the detention facility in a responsible manner.”
Congressional Republicans and other critics of releasing detainees argue they have the strong potential to return to the battlefield or commit other acts of terror.
Each of six the new transferees was unanimously approved through the 2009 Executive Order Task Force. And they were approved by six federal departments or agencies -- the departments of Defense, State, Justice and Homeland Security; the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Still, Obama remains far from achieving his closure goal, with just a year and a half left in office and as Capitol Hill lawmakers threaten to make the movement of prisoners even harder.
Still, Obama remains far from achieving his closure goal, with just a year and a half left in office and as Capitol Hill lawmakers threaten to make the movement of prisoners even harder.
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