Speaking to journalists on Monday Earnest said, “We’ve been pretty blunt about the fact that Congress has put in place significant obstacles that have prevented the administration from making nearly as much progress as we would like to make in closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay.”
Earnest also refused to rule out executive action by President Obama to close the Guantanamo detention facility if Congress continued to refuse to act on the issue.
Despite the administration’s efforts, Guantanamo still has 116 prisoners and Congress has refused to permit the administration to move any of the remaining detainees to maximum security prisons or other holding facilities within the United States.
Talking to Sputnik radio, Alan Singer, Director of Social Studies at Hofstra University, New York, said, “Obama as the commander-in-chief has the authority to close the base, the problem is what do you do with 116 inmates?”
“Repatriating them doesn’t do these people any service. There is very little evidence that these people did anything. One reason why the government doesn’t want them to be transferred to the United States is that once they are there, they have a right to do legal process.”
Singer further talks about how it is possible that the US doesn’t want evidence of these people being innocent to be known to the outside world. They do not want to admit their mistake of imprisoning innocent people; neither do they want to take responsibility in case some of the inmates are a threat.
“They have been imprisoned for fifteen years now, hence US doesn’t know what to do with them. We are not looking at legal justice, we are not looking for fairness for people, we are looking at a political battle between Democrats and Republicans,” Singer said.
