Obama team clears 75 at Guantanamo for release

[phleshdef]

This is why some people just need to learn to be patient...

Obama administration task force has so far cleared 75 of the remaining 223 Guantanamo prisoners for release as part of its effort to close the detention camp, a military spokesman said on Monday.

The review team is examining each prisoner's case to decide who will be held for trial and who can be sent home or resettled in other nations.

President Barack Obama had set a January 22 deadline to shut the detention camp although Defense Secretary Robert Gates told ABC News in an interview broadcast on Sunday that "it's going to be tough" to meet the deadline.

Entire article at http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090928/ts_nm/us_guantanamo_prisoners

[kirby]

1. Don't you think...

How much patience do they need? They were detained for how many years without trial/justice and are now being let go?

Or do you mean patience with the political whims of Washington and their tough on terror stance?

[phleshdef]

2. I mean patience to allow the current administration sort out the mess it was left with RESPONSIBLY.

Which is EXACTLY what they are doing.

[Hekate]

5. Exactly. The remaining prisoners need to be sorted out; they can't just be dumped...

Due process and their human rights were violated -- the least we can do now is ensure that things are done right from now on.

Then burn that prison to the ground -- and the one at Abu Ghraib -- after processing them both as crime scenes.

Hekate

[vaberella]

8. Why are you being obtuse?!

You know very well Obama is the new President and has new officials in office and as such he wants a full and probably new review in order to make sure he makes the right decisions. Yes, many of them may be innocent and held for years, however many of them may have committed crimes and/or have enough evidence to show their connection to what happened in 911. That being said...our President wants to do everything right, legally and as quickly as possible. He doesn't want to do another Bush by just throwing in any body guilty or not and without reason. You on the other hand seem to be advocating the same rash behaviour seen in Bush in for our current President because you want your own way.

[stray cat]

3. Just like Bush....oh no wait he is releasing prisoners

[scheming daemons]

4. Bush's third term

:eyes:

[LiberalFighter]

6. Release them in the same neighborhood as Cheney.

[SIMPLYB1980]

7. Good this could have moved alot quicker if the * admin wasn't

such an epic fail.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/24/AR2009012401702.html

President Obama's plans to expeditiously determine the fates of about 245 terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and quickly close the military prison there were set back last week when incoming legal and national security officials -- barred until the inauguration from examining classified material on the detainees -- discovered that there were no comprehensive case files on many of them.

Instead, they found that information on individual prisoners is "scattered throughout the executive branch," a senior administration official said. The executive order Obama signed Thursday orders the prison closed within one year, and a Cabinet-level panel named to review each case separately will have to spend its initial weeks and perhaps months scouring the corners of the federal government in search of relevant material.

Several former Bush administration officials agreed that the files are incomplete and that no single government entity was charged with pulling together all the facts and the range of options for each prisoner. They said that the CIA and other intelligence agencies were reluctant to share information, and that the Bush administration's focus on detention and interrogation made preparation of viable prosecutions a far lower priority.

[vaberella]

9. And I was led to believe he's another Bush Warmonger Corporatist in office. I guess DUers,

aren't always right.