Obama orders Guantanamo closure
Barack Obama orders military officials to close down Guantanamo Bay
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Thursday, 22, Jan 2009 07:21
Barack Obama has ordered military officials to close down Guantanamo Bay, with executive orders now being filed.
A day after ordering the halt of all military tribunals at the controversial prison camp, the president has said he wants the facility shut within a year.
"The detention facilities at Guantanamo for individuals covered by this order shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order," an order signed by the president at the White House said.
The closure of Guantanamo, which opened several months after the September 11th 2001 attacks, was a key pre-election promise of Mr Obama, who was inaugurated on Tuesday.
"The message that we are sending around the world is that the United States intends to prosecute the ongoing struggle against violence and terrorism and we are going to do so vigilantly," Mr Obama said.
"We are going to do so effectively and we are going to do so in a manner that is consistent with our values and our ideals.
"[My team] and the American people understand that we are not, as I said in the inauguration, going to continue with a false choice between our safety and our ideals.
"It is precisely our ideals that give us the strength and the moral high ground to effectively deal with the unthinking violence that we see emanating from terrorist organisations around the world."
"We intend to win this fight and win this on our terms."
The order to close the camp, where 250 detainees are still being held, is one of three signed on Thursday.
The others ban enhanced interrogation methods, otherwise known as torture, and order a review of detention policies and all individual cases.
A major obstacle for the camp's closure is the status of its detainees, whose legal status is disputed.
But the order insists that the detainees – dubbed enemy combatants by the Bush administration - "shall be returned to their home country, released, transferred to a third country, or transferred to another United States detention facility".