By Brian Itami, NSJ Staff Editor –<\/p>\n
It is increasingly likely that the U.S. government will use military commissions to help bring about the closure of its detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and to help resolve the question of what to do with the prison\u2019s remaining detainees.\u00a0 As reported by the Washington Post<\/a> on March 5th<\/sup>, President Obama\u2019s advisers plan to recommend that Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) and four accomplices be tried before a military tribunal, a little over a month after the Department of Justice withdrew charges from a military court in preparation for a transfer to the Southern District of New York.\u00a0 White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs stated<\/a> that no decision had been made, but noted \u201csecurity and logistical concerns\u201d around holding trials in Manhattan.\u00a0 After the transfer of a Palestinian detainee to Spain in February, 188 detainees remain<\/a> in Guantanamo.\u00a0 More than a year after President Obama\u2019s call for the closing of Guantanamo, the task force reviewing the detainees\u2019 cases recommended<\/a> the prosecution of 35 of the remaining detainees in military or civilian courts, the transfer or release of 110 prisoners, and the indefinite detention of 53 more.\u00a0 Of the 110 detainees slated for repatriation or transfer, there are approximately 30 Yemenis, who would only be released upon an improvement<\/a> of security conditions in their home state.<\/p>\n Despite the remaining questions about the current detainees, some elements of the President\u2019s plan to close Guantanamo have become clearer.\u00a0 As stated in a December 15, 2009 letter<\/a> signed by five senior officials, the Obama administration intends to purchase the Thompson Correctional Center in Illinois to house the remaining detainees being held in Guantanamo.\u00a0 While there is no timeline as of yet for the relocation of the detainees, the letter noted that the prison would first be renovated to exceed the security measures currently in place at the federal \u201cSupermax\u201d facility in Colorado.\u00a0 Any transfers to the United States also would have to overcome the Congressional prohibition<\/a> on relocation.\u00a0 Keeping the KSM case in a military court is expected to help secure<\/a> Republican support for the closure of Guantanamo, and the Obama administration has engaged in negotiations with Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in an attempt to produce a politically viable solution.\u00a0 The letter further explained that going forward, the government intends to conduct both military commissions and trials in federal courts.<\/p>\n The Administration\u2019s proposals have raised concerns from those on both sides of the aisle.\u00a0 Anthony Romero, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, objected to the idea of indefinite detentions, stating<\/a>, \u201cThere is no statutory regime in America that allows us to hold people without charge or trial indefinitely.\u201d\u00a0 Similarly, Amnesty International issued a strong rebuke to the rumored decision, writing, \u201cEach day that passes without accountability, remedy and resolution of detainee cases in line with U.S. human rights and humanitarian law obligations compounds the damage done to the vision of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights already wrought by actions taken by the USA in the name of \u2018countering terrorism\u2019 over recent years.\u201d<\/p>\n At the same time, Senator Graham has been an outspoken critic of the Administration\u2019s plans to close Guantanamo, stating<\/a> in a February interview, \u201cI’m trying to create a system that will allow us to fight this war within our values, capture enemy prisoners, find out what they know about enemy operations, keep them off the battlefield, then decide what system to put them into, military or civilian, but always focused on the fact that we’re at war.\u00a0 I will help this administration, but we will never be able to close Guantanamo Bay going down the road they have chosen.\u00a0 The American people don’t understand putting Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian court in New York.\u201d\u00a0 Graham also noted the 20% recidivism rate amongst former Guantanamo detainees as a reason to question both the release of prisoners and his own confidence in Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan.<\/p>\n