President Says Facility Was Always Meant to Be Temporary (Gitmo)

http://www.abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=3309173&page=1

Gitmo May Close, but Fate of Detainees Uncertain
President Says Facility Was Always Meant to Be Temporary

By LIZ MARLANTES
June 23, 2007


Sixteen people were arrested in front of the White House Saturday as part of a demonstration against the administration's alleged use of torture at detention facilities like Guantanamo Bay.

"What's going on there is just unconscionable," said Ray McGovern, a former CIA officer who spoke at the rally. "Creating the equivalent of a gulag -- as we used to accuse the Soviet Union of doing -- putting people in there and then violating not only our own common law, but how many centuries of habeas corpus ... now that's about as bad as it gets."

Administration officials say they have always planned to shut down Guantanamo -- the facility in Cuba that houses war on terror detainees -- eventually.

President Bush declared more than a year ago that he'd like to see the detention facility emptied. Defense Secretary Robert Gates echoed that view last March.

"The president said he'd like the close the facility there," Gates said. "I'd like to close the facility there."

But pressure to close Guantanamo has been building -- from the courts and from Congress, as well as from human rights activists -- and many administration officials concede it has become a lightning rod that is damaging the United States's credibility at home and abroad.

more...

http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2006-02/2006-02-17-voa83.cfm?CFID=89686184&CFTOKEN=37575348

This was going on about the same time the Chimp told the media he wanted to see it emptied.

Par for the crooked course.

Bush would want it shut down is so he doesn't have to await his trial there.

to be completed. Maybe it would be more difficult for Red Cross and other orgs to have over sight there. In the meantime most GITMO Detainees will prolly be shipped to Diego Garcia.

Seriously, what the fuck is the purpose of the facility anyways? Cuba isn't a threat, and in fact would probably LOVE to open up a bit more with us if we ended the embargo. It just seems like stupidity and stubbornness to me.

Same old same old, deny that 2 years ago anyone who said things about these abuses were slapped with the Murka Haterz paintbrush, and that Gitmo was full of nothing but Lemony Chicken Goodness. Never a word of closing it, or that * was considering doing so until now.

Now that the courts are releasing some of the detainees, history gets a re-writing for the masses.