WASHINGTON, Jan 13 (KUNA) — Reacting to reports that U.S. President-elect Barack Obama plans to issue an executive order on his first full day in office — Jan. 21 — directing the closing of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, White House deputy spokesman Tony Fratto on Tuesday said President George W. Bush has always advocated closing the facility “over time”.
The New York Times reported the Obama plans on Tuesday, but experts have said it likely would take many months, perhaps as long as a year, to close the prison that has been the target of international condemnation for alleged abuse of prisoners held there.
There are 248 prisoners in the facility, many described by Bush administration officials as hard-core terrorists that their home countries will not accept.
Fratto said he believes everyone realizes the “incredible complexity of actually closing Guantanamo, the legal and national security concerns that people are noticing now”.
The issue is complicated, Fratto said, adding, “It would take a great deal of time to do it, and you do have the problem of what do you do with known and hardened and experienced terrorists?” Fratto said. “Where do you put them”.
Vice President Dick Cheney, responding to reports of the Obama plan on Guantanamo, said, “I think it is a bad decision.” In an interview, Cheney said the prison complex was “a first-rate facility, it is a good facility, there is a reason why it is there”.
Fratto said he would agree with Cheney that “for now, Guantanamo is the place to keep them until we can find other solutions”.