Photo: Joe Raedle / Getty Images
For: EFE
Wednesday, November 27
Biden asks Congress to grant him more authority to manage Guantanamo military prison
The President of the United States, Joe Biden, asked Congress to give him greater authority to manage the prison military base of Guantanamo (Cuba ), which Washington opened in 2002 to lock up terror suspects.
Biden made his request in a statement in the that expressed its rejection of some of the provisions of the defense budget for the year 2022, valued at 768,000 million dollars, and that reflects Washington’s new policy to leave Afghanistan behind and focus its efforts on China and Russia.
This budget, contained in the so-called National Defense Authorization Law (NDAA), has for years included restrictions on the transfer of prisoners from Guantanamo to other countries or territory which directly hinders Biden’s goal of closing that jail.
“I urge Congress to remove those restrictions as soon as possible,” demanded Biden in the statement.
Despite the disagreements, the president signed this legislation on Monday, which includes 20, 000 million dollars more than it had requested from Congress and represents a growth of 5% in the defense budget compared to the previous year.
Biden has insisted that he wants to close Guantanamo, but has taken a more discreet approach than Barack Obama (2009 – 2017), who could not close down that prison and had to content himself with reducing the prison population through transfers to third countries.
In 2015, Obama even threatened to veto the National Defense Authorization Act for the clauses it contained on Guantánamo, but finally signed it.
Currently there 39 detained in Guantanamo , far from the 780 that came to pass through its facilities since George W. Bush (2001-2009) the opened in 2002.
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