Today in Washington, D.C. - Jan. 22, 2009 - Obama Misses Gitmo Closure Deadline: 60% Oppose Closure; Still No Plan From Admin

The Senate resumed consideration of H.J. Res. 45, the resolution to raise the debt limit. Up to 12 amendments may be considered to the bill. All amendments and final passage of the bill will require 60 votes. No votes are scheduled for today.

According to the AP, Senate Democrats are proposing a $1.9 trillion increase in the debt limit. “Less than a decade ago, $1.9 trillion would have been enough to finance the operations and programs of the federal government for an entire year. Now, it’s only enough to make sure Democrats can avoid another vote before Election Day.”

Yesterday, a majority of the Senate voted for Sen. John Thune’s (R-SD) amendment to end the TARP program and dedicate any remaining money to debt reduction. However, the amendment failed, however, because it did not receive the 60 votes need for adoption.

A year ago today, in one of his first public ceremonies at the White House, President Barack Obama signed an executive order requiring that the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay be closed in one year. The deadline has arrived, but Guantanamo remains open, and for good reason. As Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said last April, “It’s clear . . . that the administration is putting symbolism ahead of safety. This becomes even more apparent from Attorney General Holder’s admission that closing Guantanamo will be ‘one of the most daunting challenges’ he will face. He clearly realizes what most Americans realize: closing Guantanamo is not a good option if no safe alternatives exist.”

Sure enough, The Washington Post reports today, “A Justice Department-led task force has concluded that nearly 50 of the 196 detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be held indefinitely without trial under the laws of war, according to Obama administration officials. The task force's findings represent the first time that the administration has clarified how many detainees it considers too dangerous to release but unprosecutable because officials fear trials could compromise intelligence-gathering and because detainees could challenge evidence obtained through coercion.”

So despite a year of rhetoric from the Obama administration about how important it was to close Guantanamo, even the Justice Department now recognizes that some detainees are simply too dangerous to release and cannot be prosecuted in civilian courts.  What to do with them, then?

An AP story yesterday noting that Obama will miss his self-imposed deadline “by a wide margin, likely a year or more,” explains, “Unless he decides to change course, to close Gitmo the president must still find support in Congress to pay for a super-secure prison in Illinois for some of the detainees he wants to continue holding. He must also get additional money, likely hundreds of millions of dollars, to provide extra security to put some suspects, including [9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh] Mohammed, on trial in federal courts.”

Part of the reason the president has trouble finding support is that it has produced no plan to close Guantanamo (which even Democrats acknowledge), and none of the alternatives, such as simply moving the facility to Illinois, are practical or appealing. Indeed, last May the Senate voted 90-6 to deny the administration funding to “transfer, release, or incarcerate” detainees in the U.S.

And after a year of the administration being stalled by the realities of the situation and the failure to catch the attempted Christmas Day bombing of an airliner flying into Detroit, Americans are saying they don’t support closing the detention facility at Guantanamo. Last week, a Quinnipiac poll found that 60% of Americans say Guantanamo should not be closed. That’s a level of opposition similar to polling on the health care bills.

In a major speech on security issues on the Senate floor yesterday, Sen. McConnell with the Obama administration’s approach to Guantanamo and other aspects of the War on Terror. “[I]n my view, the administration has on a number of instances struck the wrong balance over the past year between safety and civil liberties. Its preference for prosecuting a terrorist like the Christmas Day Bomber in civilian courts shows a dangerous preoccupation with prosecution over prevention just as explained the problemits hasty decision to close Guantanamo showed a preoccupation with symbolism over security.”

A year later, there’s still no concrete plan on what to do with the detainees being kept in Guantanamo. Many simply cannot be released, a significant number of those that have been released have rejoined terrorist groups, and there is no money and little support in Congress for bringing them to the United States. Americans oppose closing the facilities at Guantanamo and the administration has shown no compelling evidence that doing so will make the country safer. President Obama has missed his hastily-conceived and poorly thought through deadline, but for the moment, that appears to be the best outcome for national security.

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