Legal News

Guantanam?oh No! Financial Hurdles Hit Obama?s Latest Plan

By Ashby Jones

A little less than a year ago, when President Obama set a one-year deadline for closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, it seemed to many like a realistic goal.

But the wind-down has been anything but smooth. Members of Congress have objected to efforts to bring the detainees to the U.S., judges have thrown up roadblocks, and the Obama administration has stumbled over presenting a clear and coherent plan, (stumbles which reportedly led to the departure of White House counsel Greg Craig.)

The latest hurdle: the administration is short on cash.

It's true: Earlier this month, lawmakers balked at the administration's proposal to buy a rural prison in Illinois in which to house the detainees. And the administration's efforts to find money on its own have so far come up short. Click here for the NYT article.

As a result, writes the NYT's Charlie Savage:

[O]fficials now believe that they are unlikely to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and transfer its population of terrorism suspects until 2011 at the earliest - a far slower timeline for achieving one of President Obama's signature national security policies than they had previously hinted.

The main problem, it seems, lies in the fact that necessary fixes to the Thomson Correctional Center can't start until the feds buy the prison from the state of Illinois. But the federal Bureau of Prisons doesn't have the $150 million it would take to buy the prison. And Congress has made fairly clear it's not playing ball – at least not until the spring at the earliest.

As an alternative, administration officials had, according to the NYT, discussed invoking a little-known statute that would allow Obama to declare a national emergency and then use military funds to fix Thomson. But the administration ultimately decided against that route.

Ben LaBolt, a White House spokesman, said Mr. Obama remained committed to closing the Guantánamo prison, adding, "We will continue to work with Congress to ensure that we secure the necessary funds to purchase and upgrade the Thomson prison, which will operate at a substantially lower cost to taxpayers, next year."

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on December 23, 2009 (boomark / email).