President Donald Trump wants to keep Guantanamo Bay Prison open for another 25 years, the detention camp’s commander told NBC News on Friday.
Rear Adm. John Ring took command of Guantanamo, or Gitmo, in April, after Trump dedicated over $200 million to new construction for the base in his $1.3 trillion spending bill.
"I'm the innkeeper," Ring told NBC. "I don't make laws. People in D.C. tell me when people are going away, when people may be coming in, and my job is to keep these folks comfortable, safe."
He was told to keep his “inn” open for another 25 years, despite Gitmo not having received a new prisoner since 2008. There are 40 remaining in Guantanamo Bay. The average age of a detainee is 46, and one is 71 years old. Ring described the prison as struggling to maintain the facility and to care for its aging prisoners.
"It's sort of falling into the ground and deteriorating rapidly," he said of Camp 7, a detention camp that requires a high-level of security clearance to enter.
Ret. Brig. Gen. Stephen Xenakis, a psychiatrist who worked with Gitmo detainees, said that medical care is often delayed because specialists have to be flown in, the medical facilities on-site are in poor condition or need upgrading, and because the detainees lack trust in their doctors.
"It's a planning issue," Xenakis said. "The question is at one point do you decide, as you look at this population and demographic, how you are going to care for heart disease without a full-time cardiologist or neuropsychiatric symptoms without a neurosurgeon."
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