Past the Deadline on Guantánamo

A week after the deadline for closing the detention center, the United States is no closer to a satisfactory outcome.

BY SARAH E. MENDELSON | JANUARY 25, 2010

The one-year deadline for closing Guantánamo came and went last week, with 196 men still detained at the U.S. facility. The interagency task force reviewing the Guantánamo detainees' files has now finished its work. Unfortunately, instead of placing the remaining detainees into only two categories -- release/transfer or try -- it has also recommended adding a third category: continued indefinite detention without charge. That doesn't make closing Guantánamo sound very likely.

By all accounts, President Obama remains strongly committed to shuttering the detention facility. He says so in virtually every major foreign-policy speech and made signing an executive order on Guantánamo one of his very first presidential acts. One year later, Obama needs different options than what the interagency task force has provided if he is to deliver on this critical campaign promise.

The Jan. 27 London ministerial meeting on Yemen is an opportunity to explore such alternatives.

No single group of detainees at Guantánamo has confounded the Obama administration more than the 91 Yemenis. Of the 196 men still detained, the interagency task force recommended that 53 not be released or prosecuted. Almost half of these men -- as many as 25 -- are Yemeni. (The next largest group is Afghans, and then there are small numbers of individuals from other countries.) Of the 110 that are listed for some type of release or transfer, about 60 are Yemeni. Unless conditions change on the ground in Yemen, these men are going nowhere. It is not inconceivable that, over the next year, as detainees from other countries are moved out of Guantánamo for prosecution or release, the vast majority left will be Yemenis. If Guantánamo were a recruiting tool for al Qaeda before, Guantánamo populated mainly by Yemenis will be even more problematic.

Maybe that is why in December, the Obama administration announced a plan to purchase the Thomson Correctional Center in rural Illinois. A letter from the secretaries of defense and state and other officials to the Illinois governor said the federal government planned to use Thompson for military commissions and for the detention of individuals now held at Guantánamo. In briefing reporters,  senior administration officials were at great pains to say that "no one has been put in this [indefinite detention] category yet. Don't jump to conclusions." But the clear implication of the announcement was that the Obama administration was considering adopting the "field of dreams" scenario anticipated by some (and dreaded by other) members of the Center for Strategic and International Studies' 2007-2008 working group on Guantánamo: If you build it, they will come. In other words, give those sorting the files the option of not releasing and not prosecuting, and the interagency task force will sort detainees into that category.

Authorities on international humanitarian law vehemently disagree about whether the Obama administration has the legal authority under the laws of war to detain these people indefinitely without charge in the United States at a facility such as Thompson. Clearly some in the administration are making the argument that the president does have the authority.

But, the legal issue aside, there are serious political problems. Congress is likely to grant funds for the federal purchase of Thompson for the military commission trials and post-conviction detention. Congressional staff suggest, however, that it is extremely unlikely the administration would find 60 votes supporting the use of Thompson for indefinite detention. It strikes many as moving Guantánamo rather than closing it. Why would Congress authorize funds for that?

With Thompson looking like a poor option, what is a better alternative? The answer lies in, of all places, Yemen.

 

Sarah E. Mendelson is director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Human Rights and Security Initiative.

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KARENYKARL

12:49 PM ET

January 26, 2010

The author has touched on something very big and complicated,

and that is, that American foreign policy has a very badly designed tool box to deal with the problems that it is facing with terrorism. I'm currently reading Thomas Barnett's book, The Pentagon's New Map.He states that the US Defense Department has spent decades building up a high-tech capital intensive military arm (to fight the old Soviet Union or some future equivalent) while ignoring the real conditions necessitating American involvement overseas.

In Afghanistan for example, American/NATO efforts could be classified as 90% military, 10% foreign aid. Barnett and I would both contend that a more effective effort in Afghanistan (or Yemen) would be 90% foreign aid, 10% military. Nation building is a concept frought with traps and historical memories of bad implementation in the past. Think of our misguided efforts in Vietnam, for example.

But it's clear that nation building, i.e. integrating the have nots of this world into better functioning, more prosperous conditions so that they can take advantage of the benefits of interacting in a global economy is probably the best way of dealing with the environmental conditions that create terrorism and instability.

It's obvious to me that the Obama administration is trying to deal with multiple major issues on its plate beyond defense, and the structural makeup of the US intelligence and defense establishment means that it will be at least a decade before there will be a major evolution of our capabilities of delivering more effective foreign policy mixes to areas like Yemen. So what is to be done?

Here, there is a great deal of logic in collective action. The London conference is a good first step, not only in dealing with Yemen, but in addressing the long term problems of what creates terrorists. The rest of the First World besides the United States has a responsibility of being more proactive in addressing the conundrums that countries like Afghanistan and Yemen pose, not only to the US, but to themselves.

If we are becoming more of a global village every day, then it behooves the EU, Scandanavia, Japan, etc. to step up to the plate and do more heavy lifting, not only to reduce the causes of terrorism in the world, but to provide the mean$$ of alleviating Third World poverty. And the US should not only do everything in its power to encourage this, but to move with all deliberate speed to transform our overseas efforts to a better mix between military and other assistance.