WAR ON TERROR - Why the Holdup in Closure of Guantanamo Bay

One answer, Congress stopped President Obama from transferring them to the Continental U.S.

"What’s holding up the closure of Guantanamo Bay?" PBS NewsHour 6/11/2014

Excerpt

SUMMARY: The exchange of five Taliban prisoners for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has raised larger questions about prisoners being transferred from Guantanamo Bay.  In all, 149 detainees from 19 countries still remain at the prison camp.  For debate on what’s preventing the closure of the detention facility, Judy Woodruff turns to Benjamin Wittes of the Brookings Institution and Baher Azmy of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  So, where do things stand at Guantanamo today?  In all, 149 detainees still remain at the prison camp from 19 different countries; 78 have been cleared for transfer or repatriation to their homelands.  Of the 71 detainees not cleared for transfer, the Department of Defense expects 20 will be prosecuted before military commissions.

The 51 remaining prisoners have been deemed by the administration as too dangerous to release; however, there is not enough evidence to charge them with specific crimes.

To sort through these numbers, and the complications of closing the detention facility at the Naval base, we get two different views.

Benjamin Wittes is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of the book “Detention and Denial: The Case for Candor After Guantanamo.”  And Baher Azmy, he is legal director at the Center for Constitutional Rights.  It’s an organization that currently represents 10 detainees at the prison.