President Barack Obama on Tuesday proposed to “once and for all” close the U.S. military detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and transfer remaining detainees to a facility in the United States. Since 2002, 779 people have been detained there; fewer than 100 remain.

“For many years it’s been clear that the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay does not advance our security,” Obama said in a White House press conference. “It undermines it.”

“Fifteen years after [the 9/11 attacks] we’re still having to defend a facility where not a single verdict has been reached in those attacks. Not a single one. When I first ran for president it was widely recognized that this facility needed to close. … There was bipartisan support to close it.”

From AP:

Obama’s plan faces resistance from Congress and has also been criticized by the Center for Constitutional Rights as offering “too little, too late.”

–Posted by Roisin Davis

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#barack obama#cuba#guantanamo bay#human rights#military#prison#war on terror