Obama’s comments come as Sudanese militant Ibrahim al-Qosi — who was released in 2012 — seemingly appeared in a recent video by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
“The judgment that we’re continually making is, are there individuals who are significantly more dangerous than the people who are already out there who are fighting?” Obama said.
“What do they add? Do they have special skills? Do they have special knowledge that ends up making a significant threat to the United States?”
“And so the bottom line is that the strategic gains we make by closing Guantanamo will outweigh, you know, those low-level individuals who, you know, have been released so far.”
The Republican-controlled Congress has thwarted Obama’s repeated efforts to close Guantanamo.
Obama came to office in 2009 vowing to shutter the facility, which opened under his predecessor George W. Bush to hold terror suspects after the September 11, 2001 attacks and became known for harsh interrogation techniques that some have said were tantamount to torture.
Obama is soon expected to put forward a new plan that would speed the release of inmates and transfer the most dangerous ones to US soil.
The plan is likely to accelerate the release of low-level detainees to foreign countries and move the most dangerous prisoners to a specialized facility in the United States.
Because of a congressional ban on funding US transfers, Obama has suggested he may have to resort to an executive order to close the prison. This would ignite a political and legal firestorm.
Obama also told Yahoo News that he “very much” hopes to travel to Cuba before leaving office a little over a year from now.
The United States and Cuba restored diplomatic ties this summer, ending a half-century of enmity stemming from the Cold War era.
Obama reiterated previous White House comments that some progress would need to be seen on human rights before any presidential trip.
Obama said he would go when aides could determine “now would be a good time to shine a light on progress that’s been made, but also maybe (go) there to nudge the Cuban government in a new direction.”
The periodic review list of detainees is here.
Transfers Could Reduce Guantánamo Detainees to 90
NYT’s: WASHINGTON — The Obama administration appears to be on the cusp of the largest round of transfers of Guantánamo Bay detainees in a single month since 2007, a move that could reduce the detainee population there to as low as 90 by mid- to late January, according to officials familiar with internal deliberations.
Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter has notified Congress in recent days that he has approved 17 proposed transfers of lower-level detainees, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss matters that have not yet been made public. Congress has required Mr. Carter to certify that security standards have been met at least 30 days before any transfers.
President Obama wants to close the Guantánamo prison in Cuba before he leaves office in a little over a year. His administration has stepped up efforts to find countries to take 48 detainees on a transfer list and moved to speed up the work of a parole-like board that might approve the release of others who are currently recommended for indefinite detention.
The Republican-led Congress, however, has shown little interest in lifting a ban on bringing any detainees to a prison inside the United States, which is Mr. Obama’s plan for those who are either facing trial or are deemed too dangerous to release.
But even as the administration seems to be trying to speed up its fitful effort to winnow down the Guantánamo population, the military is taking steps that will curtail journalists’ access to the wartime prison.
The commander who oversees the military base, Gen. John F. Kelly, has created new rules that will limit reporters to four “media day” trips a year in which large groups will come and depart the same day. Reporters will generally no longer be permitted to go inside the prison camp’s walls.
In a telephone interview, General Kelly connected his decision “to tighten things up a little bit, particularly on the scheduling” for news media visits, in part to what he described as a sharp rise in visits by delegations from foreign governments that are considering resettling detainees.
The operational strains of handling such visitors, he said, formed the backdrop to an episode in October that focused his attention on rules for visits. He said that a journalist, whom he would not identify, was “extremely impolite” during an interaction with a service member who worked at a detainee library.
All that, he said, prompted him to fix what he saw as a problem before his designated successor, Vice Adm. Kurt Tidd, who is awaiting a Senate confirmation vote, takes over.
Until now, the military has generally permitted small numbers of reporters to visit the prison throughout the year if no military commission hearing is going on. The reporters have flown to the base on a Monday and flown out the following Thursday.
Reporters have spent that time on a tour that included walking through the two camps that hold lower-level detainees. While reporters have never been permitted to speak to the detainees, they have seen them from afar, talked to the officers in charge of each camp, interviewed the senior medical officer in the detainee clinic and interviewed lower-ranking guards.
General Kelly said he decided it would be easier for everyone if groups of reporters came to the base only during quarterly “media days,” in which they could talk to a handful of officials like the joint task force commander and the military’s cultural adviser, and then leave that same day.
The general said he no longer wanted reporters to talk to lower-level guards because it was not their role to opine about detention operations, or to go inside the prison because that could cause disruptions. However, he said, depending on what else is going on, exceptions might be made to let first-time visitors inside.
“The camps have not changed since the last time you’ve been there,” he told a reporter for The New York Times who has visited the prison several times, most recently in August 2014. “We still do the same things.”
Several news media outlets, including The Times, have asked the military to reconsider. Dave Wilson, a senior editor at The Miami Herald who oversees its coverage of Guantánamo, said he had told the military that it was important for experienced beat reporters to keep going inside the prison.
“A first-timer doesn’t know what they are seeing because they are seeing it for the first time,” Mr. Wilson said. “They don’t know if something has changed. They don’t know if it’s better or worse.”
General Kelly previously decided in September 2013 to stop telling reporters how many detainees were participating in a hunger strike each day.
