Guantanamo Bay Explained: Costs, Captives, and Why It’s Still Open

Once upon a time, the US Department of Defense detention operation at Guantanamo held hundreds of men captured by US forces and their allies in the war against terrorism. Now there are only 15 inmates as the prison enters its 24th year.

It was opened and filled by President George W. Bush. President Barack Obama tried to close it but could not. President Donald J. Trump said he would fill it with “bad guys” and he didn’t. President Biden said he wants to finish the job Mr. Obama started but will not be able to do it.

Unless Congress lifts the ban on transferring Guantanamo prisoners to US soil, the costly naval operation could continue for years, until the last detainee dies.

Who is in Guantanamo now?

the 15 remaining prisoners Their ages range between 45 and 63 years. They are from Afghanistan, Indonesia, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and Yemen. One is a stateless Rohingya and the other is Palestinian.

All but three were transferred to Guantanamo from the CIA’s network of secret prisons abroad, where the Bush administration hid people it considered “the worst of the worst” until 2006.

There are five defendants in the September 11 case, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is accused of planning the attacks. One is a Saudi man Accused of organizing Bombing of the USS Cole The year 2000, which resulted in the deaths of 17 American sailors. These are cases punishable by death that never went to trial.

The longest serving prisoner is Ali Hamza al-Bahlulwho was brought to the base from Afghanistan on the prison’s opening day, four months after the September 11 attacks in 2001. He is the only prisoner currently serving a life sentence.

In the early years of internment, some of the youngest prisoners were teenagers. Today is the youngest Walid bin Attash45, is a defendant in the September 11 case and has a deal to plead guilty in exchange for life in prison rather than face the death penalty.

The oldest is Abdul-Hadi al-Iraqi63, is the most physically disabled prisoner at Guantanamo Bay. He was convicted of war crimes in Afghanistan in 2003-2004.

The prison was used exclusively for suspected members of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban or their associates. None of them were women or American citizens.

Why didn’t the president close it?

Congress will not allow it.

Every year, it adopts legislation prohibiting the transfer of any Guantanamo detainee to US territory for any reason.

But the Obama administration concluded that it could not release everyone, and that closing the prison would require holding at least a small number of prisoners in detention facilities similar to the Guantanamo Bay prison in the United States.

The CIA is also likely to object to the transfer to a third country of its former prisoners who know classified information related to their detention, such as the identities of the people they say tortured them.

Currently, US intelligence agencies monitor all their communications to ensure that state secrets are not divulged.

Do we know how much it costs?

Not exactly. The last comprehensive study of the costs of running a prison, conducted by The New York Times in 2019, put the number at more than $13 million annually for each prisoner. Most of that went to support court operations and prison staff.

At the time, there were 40 prisoners, and the Pentagon had a staff of 1,800 American soldiers.

By that measure, it would cost $36 million to hold each prisoner there in 2025.

But operational costs have changed. The Pentagon reduces its number of employees by More than half It has hired more contractors, who may be more expensive than soldiers who serve nine-month tours.

The war court proceedings cost hundreds of millions of dollars in salaries, infrastructure, and transportation. Since 2019, the Office of Military Commissions has added two new courtrooms, new offices and temporary housing, more attorneys, more security personnel and more contractors.

Increasingly, the costs of court operations are considered national security secrets and not subject to public scrutiny. But the screenshots appear. Prosecutors paid a forensic psychiatrist $1.4 million in consulting fees in the September 11 case.

Is CIA torture to blame?

He’s a worker. Had some of these prisoners been transferred directly to the United States shortly after their arrest, they would have been in federal custody and may have been tried in American courts.

Instead, 12 of the 15 people were held in overseas “black site” prisons run by the CIA where they were held incommunicado and interrogated with authorities. Waterboarding, beatingSleep deprivation and years of isolation.

Because of what happened to them, and where it happened, the Bush administration chose to try the men before a new national security court it established at Guantanamo Bay. The trials remained stuck in pre-trial hearings, two of them for more than a decade, which focused on the stigma of their torture; How well do the prisoners’ lawyers and the public know about the matter? And efforts to dismiss cases because of it.

The health of the remaining detainees is deteriorating, both physically and mentally, which lawyers blame on their long-term solitary confinement and ill-treatment. Some suffer from brain damage and disorders as a result of blows and sleep deprivation. Other organs in the digestive system have been damaged by rectal misuse.

Congress is funding a new $435 million medical clinic at the base.

Can more prisoners be released?

Three of the 15 prisoners are scheduled to be released if the State Department can find countries to resettle them and track their activities. They are the stateless Rohingya, Somalis and Libyans.

Three other prisoners who were never charged, all former CIA prisoners, have not been acquitted, but are subject to periodic review. One of them is The Afghan man that Taliban leaders want He returned home.

Also as part of the plea deal, the disabled Iraqi prisoner could serve his sentence, which expires in 2032, in the custody of a US ally better able to care for him. The State Department has a plan to send him to a prison in Baghdad. But it is Sue the government To stop this transfer. His lawyers say Iraqi prisons are inhumane, which would violate US commitments not to forcibly send anyone to a country where they could be exposed to abuse. They also say Iraq does not have the capacity to provide adequate care for him, a condition of the plea deal.

Who released the most prisoners?

The George W. Bush administration sent 780 men and boys Guantanamo, About 540 of them were released in the project’s early years. Handed over by the CIA He was last detained there in 2008. No other administration has sent detainees to Guantanamo Bay.

The Obama administration released 200 others. Many of them were resettled to third countries because their countries of origin were too unstable to help them return to society or monitor their activities.

Although Mr. Trump campaigned before his first election to fill the position, his administration did not send anyone there. He let one go – a Saudi He returned home To Saudi Arabia to serve his sentence for committing war crimes there.

The Biden administration has released 25 prisoners, about half of them through repatriations, most of them in his final days in office.