Guantanamo and US Senate/House of Representatives

The remaining 15 “war on terror” prisoners at Guantánamo have largely been forgotten, although detention facilities at the naval base have been cynically used by Donald Trump in the “war on migrants” he declared when he took office five months ago. While Trump’s interest in Guantánamo has largely waned, migrants are still being sent there, with the latest including a group of Haitians who were subsequently deported back to Haiti, on the same day that it was reported that the Trump administration was planning to send 9,000 new migrants to Guantánamo, including 800 Europeans. The claim was dismissed as “fake news” by the White House, but it seems to me that the officials who leaked the documents did so in an effort to derail the proposals by enraging European allies, which seems to have been successful. I also report on a letter to Kristi Noem and Pete Hegseth by 15 lawmakers, led by Rep. Rashida Tlaib, calling for the prison’s closure, and I also reflect on Guantánamo’s sordid history, and its still tainted present, to mark the UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, which was yesterday.

With just two months to go until President Biden cedes power to Donald Trump, it’s crucial that pressure is exerted on the Biden administration to secure the release from Guantánamo of 16 men, never charged with a crime, who have long been approved for release — for between two and four years, and in three outlying cases for nearly 15 years. Urgent action is essential, because it is clear that Trump will seal Guantánamo shut, as he did in his first term in office. The scandal of these men’s ongoing imprisonment is that the decisions taken to approve them for release were made by high-level administrative processes, which have no legal weight, meaning that no mechanism exists to compel the government to actually free them if they find it inconvenient or to do so. An additional complication is that most of them are Yemenis, and US law prevents the return of prisoners to Yemen. However, over a year ago, a plan to resettle them in Oman was finalized, but was called off after the October 7 attacks in Israel. That plan urgently needs reviving, or, if that isn’t possible, another country needs to be found that will offer these men new homes. The alternative — another four years of entombment under Donald Trump — doesn’t even bear thinking about.

Photos and a report about the first coordinated protests calling for the closure of Guantánamo, and for the release of the 20 men approved for release from the prison, in London and Washington, D.C. on February 15, 2023. More coordinated protests, involving other locations. will be taking place on Wednesday March 8.

My report about the latest medical scandal at Guantánamo, as a medical team was flown in to conduct emergency surgery on Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, who has a degenerative spinal condition. Al-Iraqi previously had five surgical operations at Guantánamo, in 2017-18, after his condition was ignored for ten years. It is clear that his needs cannot be met at the prison, but he cannot receive urgent and more appropriate medical care on the US mainland because of an ongoing ban, imposed by Congress in the annual National Defense Authorization Act, which prevents prisoners from being transferred to the US mainland for any reason. I also look at the case of Ammar al-Baluchi, who suffered brain damage as a result of torture in a CIA “black site,” but whose calls for independent medical experts to assess him are being resisted by the Biden administration.

Posting the letter sent by 69 lawmakers to the chairs of the House and Senate Armed Services Committee, urging them to drop the ban on sending Guantánamo prisoners to the US mainland for any reason (even for urgent medical treatment) in next year’s National Defense Authorization Act – plus my account of the shameful 12-year history of the obstacles raised by Republicans regarding Guantánamo in successive versions of the NDAA.

My report about last week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, “Closing Guantánamo: Ending 20 Years of Injustice,” chaired by Sen. Dick Durbin, including the video of the entire hearing, which featured expert witnesses explaining why the prison must be closed.

My transcript of a speech in the Senate, urging the closure of Guantánamo, which was made by Sen. Dick Durbin, a longtime opponent of the prison’s existence, as he introduced an amendment to the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), seeking to close the prison once and for all.

My analysis of the significance of last week’s full en banc hearing, in the Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., in Al-Hela v. Biden, a case focused on whether the prisoners at Guantánamo have due process rights (a question that shouldn’t need asking after nearly 20 years), highlighting the obstructive role played by the Justice Department throughout the prison’s long history.

A link to, and discussion of my interview yesterday, about the men still held indefinitely without charge or trial at Guantánamo, and the Biden administration’s slowness in releasing prisoners already approved for release, and moving towards the prison’s eventual closure, with Chris Cook, for his Gorilla Radio show in Victoria, Canada. Chris and I have spoken many times before over the years, and he is always an extremely well-informed host.

Publicizing an important letter to President Biden from 75 members of the House of Representatives, led by David Price (D-NC), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), calling for the closure of the prison at Guantánamo Bay, and also pointing out that the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban must not lead to cynical right-wingers seeking to derail efforts to close Guantánamo.