Biden 'quietly' moves to close Guantanamo Bay prison

US President Joe Biden’s administration has quietly stepped up efforts to close Washington’s notorious prison camp at Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba, in a move to get Biden closer to fulfilling a campaign promise to shut the 20-year-old facility, according to a report.

Washington, for the first time, is appointing a senior diplomat to oversee detainee transfers from the facility, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter on Saturday.

The Biden administration is also signaling that it won’t interfere with plea negotiations that could resolve the long-stalled prosecution of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-defendants, the Journal wrote.

Mohammed is among the 36 detainees currently held at the detention center.

The facility at the US base in Cuba was set up in January 2002 to house so-called war terrorists captured overseas. It has held nearly 800 men since then; only 36 detainees remain at the facility today.

Hundreds of detainees were returned home or resettled in third countries by the administrations of former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

While the newest detainee arrived in 2008, some of the men have been held for two decades.

The US had seen three presidents pledge to close the prison without following through on that promise.

Bush transferred over 500 prisoners out of the facility; Obama transferred approximately 200 men, and said he would shut the prison down, but failed.

Former President Donald Trump, however, reversed course and kept the war prison open.

Trump’s successor, Biden has long called for the facility to close, including during his 2020 presidential campaign.

Some critics of the Biden administration’s action on closing the prison, both within and outside the administration, say newer crises have been occupying the national security staff, and the potential for being branded soft-on-terrorism has slowed the administration’s efforts, they say.

According to the critics, the president’s new special representative position lacks the clout similar offices had under the Obama administration, where Guantanamo envoys had direct access to the secretary of state.

The new special representative, Tina Kaidanow, a former ambassador-at-large for counterterrorism, has been placed further down in the State Department hierarchy, the critics say.

In the meantime, the Defense Department is moving ahead with a Trump-era project, building a third courtroom at Guantanamo Bay at a cost of $4 million, even though no additional trials are expected at the naval base.

Washington is under pressure to move faster in shutting down the offshore prison, 20-one years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

“Holding people without charge or trial for years on end cannot be reconciled with the values we espouse as a nation, and has deprived the victims of 9/11 and their families of any semblance of justice or closure,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin.

Some Republican lawmakers, however, have opposed any actions that could lead to detainees leaving Guantanamo.

Senator Ted Cruz said back in December that the “Biden administration wants to free more terrorists, and we know, to an absolute, metaphysical certainty, the results of that will be more Americans murdered.”

The facility costs $540 million a year to operate, according to the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law.

Meanwhile, human rights advocates have expressed increasing frustration with the Biden administration for failing to deliver on a pledge to close the facility, leaving inmates languishing in the notorious offshore prison with no end in sight.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk