White House, key senators want Gitmo closed

WASHINGTON (PAN): Following a visit to the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba, two top US lawmakers and a key Obama aide reiterated their call to close it down and transfer detainees to a different place.

“We continue to believe it is in our national interest to end detention at Guantanamo, with a safe and orderly transition of the detainees to other locations,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, John McCain and White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough

Feinstein, McCain and McDonough visited the Guantanamo detention center, where 166 individuals are currently detained. More than 100 of them are said to be on hunger strike and are being force-fed by authorities.

After a tour of the detention facility and operations at Guantanamo Bay, the two senators and the presidential aide said they intended to work, with Congress and the administration on taking the steps necessary to make that happen.

The visit comes a week after President Barack Obama reiterated his campaign pledge to shut down the notorious prison, but Congress has vowed to keep open the naval facility, where a number of Afghans are also held.

In many ways, according to Al-Jazeera, Camp VI was America’s Potemkin Village, meant to mask Guantanamo’s defining and ugly truth: that it is a dungeon where men languish without fair process, hostages to US partisan politics.

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