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View Full Version : Pentagon releases 15 more Gitmo detainees




Zippyjuan
08-17-2016, 06:57 PM
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/08/15/pentagon-releases-15-more-gitmo-detainees/88802522/


WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has approved the release of 15 detainees from the prison camps at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the United Arab Emirates, a move derided Monday night by a leading member of Congress as reckless.

Rep. Ed Royce, the California Republican who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee, called the released detainees "hardened terrorists" who will be a threat for years.

"In its race to close Gitmo, the Obama administration is doubling down on policies that put American lives at risk," Royce said in a statement. "Once again, hardened terrorists are being released to foreign countries where they will be a threat."

The Pentagon, in a statement, said an inter-agency review board considered their potential threat to security and unanimously approved six of the 15 for release, A consensus was reached on release of the remaining nine. There are 61 detainees remaining at Guantanamo.

According to the Pentagon, the 15 prisoners are Abd al-Muhsin Abd al-Rab Salih al-Busi, Abd al-Rahman Sulayman, Mohammed Nasir Yahi Khussrof Kazaz, Abdul Muhammad Ahmad Nassar al-Muhajari, Muhammad Ahmad Said al-Adahi, Abdel Qadir al-Mudafari, Mahmud Abd Al Aziz al-Mujahid, Saeed Ahmed Mohammed Abdullah Sarem Jarabh, Mohammed Kamin, Zahar Omar Hamis bin Hamdoun, Hamid al-Razak (aka Haji Hamidullah), Majid Mahmud Abdu Ahmed, Ayub Murshid Ali Salih, Obaidullah, and Bashir Nasir Ali al-Marwalah.

Six of the 15 — al-Busi, Sulayman, Kazaz, al-Muhajari, al-Adahi, and al-Mudafari — were unanimously recommended for release by the inter-agency Guantanamo Review Task Force, the Pentagon said.

The other nine were recommended for release by the periodic review boards monitoring Guantanamo prisoners, the Pentagon said.

When President Obama took office in 2009, there were 242 detainees still in the Guantanamo Bay prison, down from a high of almost 700. That number has dropped as the Pentagon has transferred lower-risk detainees to other countries — meaning that the prisoners who remain tend to be considered higher security risks.

Obama earlier this year announced a plan to close down the facilities at Guantanamo, arguing that the keeping them open was "contrary to our values."

The plan included transferring detainees to other countries, and imprisoning those who could not be moved to existing facilities in South Carolina, Kansas and Colorado or at new prisons at military bases.

Civil libertarians applauded the move.

There are 61 prisoners remaining at Guantanamo.

Your Tax Dollars At Work: About $7 million a year for each detainee.

http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/resource/cost-guantanamo


Total Guantanamo Bay Prison Facility Costs

Cost of Guantanamo prison facility up to the end of 2015: $5.687 billion
Cost for 2015: $445 million

Not included in above costs:
Cost of camp headquarters, built in 2004: $13.5 million
Cost of Camp 7 (for “high-value” detainees): Classified
Cost of Justice Department, FBI, and CIA involvement in detention operations: Unknown
2014 Costs

Money appropriated by Congress for un-built fiber-optic cable: $31 million
U.S. Army costs for operations and maintenance, including contract intelligence analysts, librarians and linguists: $61.5 million
U.S. Navy costs for detainee operations security: $46.5 million
Money paid to Naval Base Guantanamo: $67.4 million
Military Commissions complex, including security, translation, flights from DC: $121.8 million
Review boards for Guantanamo detainees not cleared for release: $15.1 million
Guantanamo Prison Compared to U.S. Federal Prison

Annual cost per detainee at Guantanamo: More than $7 million
Annual cost per prisoner at federal Supermax prison (Florence, CO): $78,000
Annual cost per prisoner at federal maximum security prison: $34,046
Annual cost savings of moving detainees to U.S. prison according to Defense Department plan to close Guantanamo: $65-85 million