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Obama makes final appeal to Congress to close Guantanamo prison

WASHINGTON, Jan 19 (KUNA) -- On his last day as president, Barack Obama on Thursday sent a letter to the leaders of Congress urging once again for closing the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. "For 15 years, the United States has detained hundreds of people at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, a facility that never should have been opened in the first place," Obama said in the letter.
"Rather than keeping us safer, the detention facility at Guantanamo undermines American national security. Terrorists use it for propaganda, its operations drain our military resources during a time of budget cuts, and it harms our partnerships with allies and countries whose cooperation we need against today's evolving terrorist threat," he went on.
The costs of keeping it open far exceed the complications involved in closing it, he wrote.
As president, Obama noted, his administration has transferred 196 detainees from Guantanamo "with arrangements designed to keep them from engaging in acts that pose a threat to the United States and our allies. Of the nearly 800 detainees at one time held at the facility, today only 41 remain." The Defense Department has also provided the Congress with a comprehensive plan to finally close Guantanamo once and for all, he noted.
"The restrictions imposed by the Congress that prevent us from imprisoning detainees -- even to prosecute and secure a life sentence -- in the United States make no sense," Obama wrote. "No person has ever escaped one of our super-max or military prisons here, ever. There is simply no justification beyond politics for the Congress' insistence on keeping the facility open.
"Members of Congress who obstruct efforts to close the facility, given the stakes involved for our security, have abdicated their responsibility to the American people.
"There remains bipartisan support for closing Guantanamo, and we can do so in a responsible and secure way that also saves the American taxpayer money. "Guantanamo is contrary to our values and undermines our standing in the world, and it is long past time to end this chapter in our history," he added. President-elect Donald Trump has said he opposes closing Guantanamo, and has promised to send additional captured terror suspects there. (end) rm.gb