When the House and Senate Armed Services Committees released their new defense spending authorization bill this week, it was missing a key provision on closing the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
In hammering out the agreement, lawmakers stripped out a measure that would have given President Obama the authority to transfer Guantanamo prisoners to the United States as long as it was in-line with US national security interests and addressed public safety risks.
Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who was responsible for adding the measure to the bill in May, told reporters on Monday night that it had not survived negotiations with House Republicans who have long stymied efforts to close the facility.
“We compromised,” he said.
A staffer on the Senate Armed Services Committee familiar with the negotiations tells the Sentinel that in talks with the House, the Senate mostly comprised with itself.
That’s because, although an earlier version of the Senate bill contained the Levin provision, which would have given the President more cover to transfer prisoners to the United States, the bill also would have restricted detainee transfers to Yemen. It kept in place a provision from last year’s NDAA that prohibited handing detainees over to Yemeni authorities.
In negotiations that produced this week’s final bill, a staffer said that the Senate’s Guantanamo transfer provision was removed in exchange for dropping the Senate’s other Guantanamo provision that prohibited detainee transfers to Yemen.
In the end, the President is looking at an NDAA that further bars prisoner transfers to the US, but eases restrictions on transfers to Yemen.
Remaining intact is a measure passed in last year’s defense authorization that allowed the President to transfer detainees to foreign countries. The President has relied on this provision to accelerate the release of prisoners in recent weeks. Last month, seven detainees were transferred out of the facility.
In a statement last month, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) demanded an end to transfers out of Guantanamo. “What the Obama Administration is doing is dangerous and, frankly, reckless.” He said. “Until we can assure the terrorists stay off the battlefield, they must stay behind bars.”
In the run-up to his first election. President Obama campaigned on a promise to close Guantanamo, which has widely been described as the world’s most expensive prison. His administration claims the jail is used as a recruitment tool for terrorists. But with two years left in office, 142 prisoners still remain.
The House and Senate are expected to pass a new defense authorization bill before the end of the lame-duck session.
