Closing Guantanamo Fades as a Priority

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON — Stymied by political opposition and focused on competing priorities, the Obama administration has sidelined efforts to close the Guantánamo prison, making it unlikely that President Obama will fulfill his promise to close it before his term ends in 2013.

When the White House acknowledged last year that it would miss Mr. Obama’s initial January 2010 deadline for shutting the prison, it also declared that the detainees would eventually be moved to one in Illinois. But impediments to that plan have mounted in Congress, and the administration is doing little to overcome them.

“There is a lot of inertia” against closing the prison, “and the administration is not putting a lot of energy behind their position that I can see,” said Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and supports the Illinois plan. He added that “the odds are that it will still be open” by the next presidential inauguration.

And Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who also supports shutting it, said the effort is “on life support and it’s unlikely to close any time soon.” He attributed the collapse to some fellow Republicans’ “demagoguery” and the administration’s poor planning and decision-making “paralysis.”


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/us/politics/26gitmo.html?hp

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"Fellow Republicans' demagoguery?" Graham had better watch himself: The Republicans are much more likely to purge their Nelsons, Lincolns, and Landrieus! (I don't include Lieberman, 'cause he's never really been a Democrat.)

Levin is chief of the Senate Armed Forces Committee.

From the article: "Mr. Levin portrayed the administration as unwilling to make a serious effort to exert its influence, contrasting its muted response to legislative hurdles to closing Guantánamo with “very vocal” threats to veto financing for a fighter jet engine it opposes. "

but not forgotten, not by a long shot.

The issues he HAS dealt with are more urgent.

committed no crime or act of terrorism.

Still, some senior officials say privately that the administration has done its part, including identifying the Illinois prison — an empty maximum-security center in Thomson, 150 miles west of Chicago — where the detainees could be held. They blame Congress for failing to execute that endgame.

“The president can’t just wave a magic wand to say that Gitmo will be closed,” said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal thinking on a sensitive issue.

The politics of closing the prison have clearly soured following the attempted bombings on a plane on Dec. 25 and in Times Square in May, as well as Republican criticism that imprisoning detainees in the United States would endanger Americans. When Mr. Obama took office a slight majority supported closing it. By a March 2010 poll, 60 percent wanted it to stay open.


This is a pretty fair article. Pres. Obama tried to get it done, congress blocked him, the public has both yawned and turned negative so Obama is moving on. The presidents a politician and as one this issue is turning into a loser. I don't think he's done with it, but it'll be a while. The recent terrorist attack attempts aren't helping and the public being what it is equates Guantanamo with safety I think so congress isn't likely to want to get behind this.

Because I wish posters wouldn't ignore the (sad) significance of this.