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'Difficult' to Meet Guantanamo Closure Deadline: Holder
WASHINGTON - US Attorney General Eric Holder acknowledged Tuesday it will be "difficult" to close Guantanamo Bay before President Barack Obama's January 2010 deadline, amid a litany of legal and political challenges.
US Attorney General Eric Holder, pictured in August 2009, acknowledged Tuesday it will be "difficult" to close Guantanamo Bay by January 2010, as Washington faces a litany of challenges in shuttering the controversial prison. (AFP/Getty Images/File/Win Mcnamee) "It's going to be difficult for us to make the January 22 deadline," Holder told reporters, citing difficulties in relocating some detainees.
Holder and other administration officials have insisted the prison camp will eventually be closed, despite Republican and Democratic opposition to moving detainees to US soil.
"I think at the end, Guantanamo will be closed," Holder said Tuesday.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a US rights group, said it was "very concerned" about Holder's comments, noting the prison "has become a symbol of lawlessness and cruelty."
About 80 detainees are eligible for release from the US naval base, located in southern Cuba, where 223 terror suspects are still held. The administration expects another 60 will be prosecuted.
Holder said a task force assigned to review detainee cases, with the goal of determining whether individuals should be released, prosecuted or detained without charge, has "gone through all the files."
The government team has encountered setbacks as it sifts through complex cases that include evidence possibly tainted by abuse.
It has also struggled to persuade other countries to take some of the detainees, with only a trickle of prisoners -- some 27 -- transferred since Obama's inauguration in January.
"As important as when Guantanamo is closed is that it is closed right," ACLU National Security Project director Jameel Jaffer said in a statement.
"In a democracy, there is no room for a system of detention that allows human beings to be imprisoned indefinitely without charge or trial."
The group, which represents some Guantanamo detainees, repeated its calls for the government to file charges and prosecute the prisoners in US federal courts.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates admitted last month it would be "tough" to close the detention center by January, becoming the first administration official to publicly recognize Obama's self-imposed deadline might not be kept.
More than 550 detainees have been transferred from Guantanamo since it was opened by former president George W. Bush in January 2002, according to the Defense Department.
Obama pledged during his presidential campaign to close for good the facility that has become a symbol of "war on terror" abuses.
15 Comments so far
Show AllObama, liar, war criminal.
Just reading the headline makes me sick. How can a country's new administration, voted in to undo the immense damage to its own people and the whole world that its former administration had done, now renege on that minimum first step towards redemption, by appealing to notions of that first step being difficult?
I mean, hell! When you invaded other countries and stated by explicitly, while chest-thumping, that you were going to bomb their people back to the stone age, you did not think that you would make life difficult for them? When you sent, as Joseph Stiglitz put it, the sons and daughters of janitors to two war fronts to risk their lives while you stayed back in your cozy homes planning so-called military strategy, you did not think that you were making life dificult for these brave yougsters and their families who stayed back here n the US?
Go hang your selves, If you have any sense of decency left, you Holder and the whole contemptible lot!
Thank you for your posting, especially this part....
"When you sent, as Joseph Stiglitz put it, the sons and daughters of janitors to two war fronts to risk their lives while you stayed back in your cozy homes planning so-called military strategy, you did not think that you were making life dificult for these brave yougsters and their families who stayed back here n the US?"
And last, but NOT least!.......
"Go hang your selves, If you have any sense of decency left, you Holder and the whole contemptible lot!"
Nobody said it would be easy, dufus. If it was going to be easy, what the hell do we need you ass holes for! We voted you in to do some things, and you have failed at every turn. Go fuck yourselves. I'm a retired house-painter. If I had done a lousy paint job I would expect to get fired so they could hire someone else. What makes you so special.
Go George!!!!!
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a US rights group, said it was "very concerned" about Holder's comments, noting the prison "has become a symbol of lawlessness and cruelty."
Obama's definition of 'change' isn't the one the rest of us use.
I remember commenting--and being banned for it--here on CD, that the closing of Guatanamo in a year was just one more wind out of the windbag.
I will be very surprised if it is closed during this "president's" term.
Eric "Holding-the-Bag" Holder, doing the Blue Dogs' dirty work, and, recall, someone backing up Bush/Cheney's claim to be installed as fuhrer of the fuhree . .
Send Eric Holder to GITMO and let him wait there until he is the only one left.
This lie is just another nail in the coffin for all you Obama voters who were duped by the change we can believe in con, but it does not make me happy to say I told you so.
Team Obama isn't even trying. Mr. Chiquita can't find a place that will take them, but U.S. forces abducted them from Afghanistan. Gee, I wonder where they might go?
Our top law officer continues to violate habeas corpus, meaning that if the prisoners aren't charged, they must be released. You don't have to be a Constitutional lawyer to get that (although Obama claims to be one). And anyway, since when has self-defense against an invading army ever been a crime?
-TIA
Self defense became a crime because Bush/Cheney the self imposed dictators said so.
My hopes are that when Holder cleans it out with the people there that the real criminals (the Bush regime) will be rounded up and put in there. Then bring twenty-five of those that has been tortured and make them security guards. Man ole Dickieboy would destroy his pacemaker. By the way put Laura in there also.
Damn, I am mad as hell also. Because I expected Obama to undo eight years of a dictatorship total destruction of this country in every way possible.He has had a whole ten months now it should be done.
Where were you crybabies when George the King was doing all his dirty work? The way the former regime did in their destruction no matter what anyone would have been elected.This man has to go by the laws of the land. The Bush nazi's were above the law or made their own. Now that the destroyers are gone the air smells better, I can wear a shirt with my freedom of speach without some gestapo knocking me down,hitting me with a jolt from his taser or locking me up. Hell that is a great change. The people that don't like Obama, there is enough room to join and fight Bushes army. You might get as many medals as he did. Wow.
Poor Obama; He's got his back to the wall and all his little helpers are failing him, as much as he tries to get things done. Health, Banks, Jobs, Iraq, Climate, Torture, Afghanistan, Palestine.... It's not his fault. He tries his honest best, his Party the Democrats, they've got a majority but we need to see things from a bi-partisan stance. So many "interests" have to be taken into account...
Keep shouting; CHANGE.... Yes We Can.
You wanted lesser evils, well their you go, brother! Just had to ask, How much less is lesser? Is it enough to keep you rolling over for the next 3.5 years like you were supposed to?
I guess so.