The Obama administration is stepping up efforts to shut down Guantanamo Bay's prison, planning to move inmates out to fulfill a promise by President Barack Obama to close the detention facility before he leaves office.
U.S. officials told The Washington Post that dozens of inmates are expected to be moved out in the coming months. The unnamed officials said the time frame is the next six months and that the administration is in talks with various countries to take in some 64 prisoners
"He does not want to leave this to his successor," Paul Lewis, the Pentagon’s special envoy for shutting down Guantanamo, told the Post in an interview.
Already, the base has transferred 28 detainees to host countries under former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.
Obama said in a TV interview last week that he would do "everything I can" to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, just after four Afghan detainees held there were sent home.
Obama promised to shut the internationally condemned prison when he took office nearly six years ago, saying it was damaging America's image around the world. But he has been unable to do so, partly because of obstacles posed by the U.S. Congress. Obama still faces that obstacle and could be forced to use the much-criticized executive powers to close the base down.
"I'm going to be doing everything I can to close it," Obama said on CNN's "State of the Union with Candy Crowley."
"It is something that continues to inspire jihadists and extremists around the world, the fact that these folks are being held," he said.
"It is contrary to our values and it is wildly expensive. We're spending millions for each individual there. And we have drawn down the population there significantly," he added.
The administration is hoping that the Republican-led Congress will soften its position.
The are counting on Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who has expressed some support for closing the prison, to press his colleagues as he becomes head of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee.
James Inhofe, the top Republican on the committee, says Republicans are unlikely to the swayed.
"Democrats and Republicans in the House and the Senate — they’re not real excited about lining up with him on these things that he’s doing," Inhofe said told the Post. "I don’t think he’ll get by with it."
The recent appearance of former Gitmo detainees on jihadist battlefields is at least in part to blame for Congressional reticence.
Intelligence sources say about 17 percent of the more than 600 detainees released or transferred since 2002 have reemerged in battlefields fighting against U.S. interests. Another 12 percent are suspected of doing so, according to The Post.