President Obama on Thursday in a major speech outlining his administration’s counterterrorism policies also detailed plans on how to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

Amid a growing hunger strike among Gitmo detainees that gained national attention after one described the harrowing process of being force-fed, Obama said last month that he would renew his administration’s efforts to close Guantanamo.

“I once again call on Congress to lift the restrictions on detainee transfers from Gitmo,” Obama said in his speech today. And while some media outlets previously reported that part of Obama’s plan would involved authorizing the transfer of Yemeni detainees that have been cleared for release, the president expounded on some of the initial details of his plan:

OBAMA: I have asked the Department of Defense to designate a site in the United States where we can hold military commissions. I am appointing a new, senior envoy at the State Department and Defense Department whose sole responsibility will be to achieve the transfer of detainees to third countries. I am lifting the moratorium on detainee transfers to Yemen, so we can review them on a case by case basis. To the greatest extent possible, we will transfer detainees who have been cleared to go to other countries. Where appropriate, we will bring terrorists to justice in our courts and military justice system. And we will insist that judicial review be available for every detainee.

“I know the politics are hard,” Obama said of closing Gitmo. Indeed, the president is already facing fierce resistance from Republicans in Congress. Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) said Obama’s plan amounted to a “victory” for terrorists. “GITMO must stay open for business,” he said. Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in a press conference after Obama’s speech said they want Guantanamo closed but said they wanted a plan (and didn’t appear eager to offer one themselves). House and Senate Democrats, however, are sounding a more supportive.

“Imagine a future – ten years from now, or twenty years from now – when the United States of America is still holding people who have been charged with no crime on a piece of land that is not a part of our country,” Obama said, seemingly pre-empting those who will resist his plan. “Look at the current situation, where we are force-feeding detainees who are holding a hunger strike. Is that who we are? Is that something that our Founders foresaw? Is that the America we want to leave to our children?”

Obama’s major speech outlining the Administration’s counter-terrorism policy on Thursday marked a win for al-Qaeda, according to Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA).

Chambliss’ comments referred to the president’s proposed changes to detention policy, which included asking the Department of Defense to find a place to conduct trials of suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay inside the United States, lifting a moratorium on transferring Gitmo detainees to Yemen, and attempting to transfer all of the prison’s detainees that’ve been cleared for departure back to their home countries as part of an ultimate plan to shut down the Cuban site.

The senator suggested these measures constituted capitulation to terrorists:

The President’s speech today will be viewed by terrorists as a victory. Rather than continuing successful counterterrorism activities, we are changing course with no clear operational benefit. We knew five years ago that closing Guantanamo was a bad idea and would not work. Yet, today’s speech sends the message to Guantanamo detainees that if they harass the dedicated military personnel there enough, we will give in and send them home, even to Yemen. With the recidivism rate now at 28% and the increased threat from al Qaeda and its affiliates, including in Yemen, GITMO must stay open for business.

There is clear evidence that the military prison makes for an effective recruiting tactic for al-Qaeda, even in 2013. As former Air Force interrogator Matthew Alexander puts it, “the longer it stays open the more cost it will have in U.S. lives.”

Chambliss’ reference to “harassment” likely referrs to recent hunger strikes over conditions in the military prison. So far, the military’s response to the hunger strikes has been force-feeding the prisoners; detainees describe “the experience of having the [force-feeding] tube snaked down your throat as being like having a razor blade pulled down.” The detainees are striking in responses to searches of cells that they say involved guards mishandling Qu’rans.

The DNI’s office has only “confirmed” that 16.1 percent of released detainees (97 people) have engaged in terrorist activities after release, while it “suspects” another 11.9 percent have. The New America Foundation’s independent estimate finds, by contrast, that the confirmed number is only four percent, and the suspected number a scant 4.7 percent. Most of these transfers occurred during during the Bush Administration, with Congess’ consent.

The label “recidivism” is also somewhat misleading, as it implies that all released inmates were definitively engaged in some form of terrorist activity before being thrown in Guantanamo. Former Bush Administration official Lawrence Wilkerson estimates that 50-60 percent of Guantanamo inmates were innocent of any crime before being detained indefinitely without charge.

President Obama delivered a wide ranging speech on Thursday, laying out his vision for countering terrorism in his second term, including announcements on the use of drones, the future closure of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, and the eventual end of the long war against al Qaeda.

Most importantly, Obama announced that he intends to work closely with Congress to “refine, and ultimately repeal” the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). Passed in the aftermath of 9/11, the AUMF gave the president broad authority to carry out military action against “those nations, organizations, or persons” who “planned, authorized, committed, or aided” the 2001 attack.

“Groups like [Al Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula] must be dealt with, but in the years to come, not every collection of thugs that labels themselves al Qaeda will pose a credible threat to the United States,” Obama said. “Unless we discipline our thinking and our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don’t need to fight, or continue to grant presidents unbound powers more suited for traditional armed conflicts between nation states.”

Congress recently began its first set of hearings into possible revisions of the AUMF, which is about to enter its twelfth year in force. Currently, there are competing proposals in the Senate and House to either repeal the authorization in its entirety or revise it to allow for the use of force beyond the perpetrators of 9/11. Obama, however, refused to go along with any broadening of the AUMF, saying he “will not sign laws designed to expand this mandate further.”

CAP expert Ken Gude hailed Obama’s commitment to repealing the AUMF as the “beginning of the end” of the war against al Qaeda. While remnants of al Qaeda and new groups remain threats, “the extraordinary military response that followed the attacks of 9/11 embodied in the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force can now be wound down, the permanent war footing retired, and we can rebalance our efforts to fight terrorism to rely more on our effective and efficient law enforcement and intelligence agencies,” Gude told ThinkProgress.

In his speech today, Obama continued: “Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue. But this war, like all wars, must end. That’s what history advises. That’s what our democracy demands.” The clear declaration builds upon previous statements from former members of Obama’s administration that the battle against al Qaeda cannot go on indefinitely.

That desire to eventually repeal the AUMF makes up the cornerstone of the counterterrorism strategy Obama laid out today. The current Obama administration approach to conducting targeting killing and other portions that strategy were only just recently codified, as Obama acknowledged in his remarks. In it, the use of drone strikes and other applications of force will be streamlined to a more limited set of targets, with a higher level of scrutiny applied when determining those targets, while a renewed focus on the other elements of preventing terrorism will be implemented.
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Military and civilian lawyers representing terror suspect detainees at Guantanamo Bay are sent a letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel urging him to improve conditions as authorities there crack down on detainees engaging in a hunger strike.

“While the hunger strike continues to increase in scope and severity, there is much you can do, right now, to improve the quality of life for all the prisoners,” the lawyers said in their letter to Hagel, Reuters reports.

Conditions at the camp have reportedly deteriorated since detainees started their hunger strike in February. Now, the military says 103 detainees are refusing food and 31 are being force-fed. Gitmo authorities have restricted communal living and taken away amenities in a effort to break the hunger strike.

“[I]t’s very clear that individual isolation is to break the hunger strike,” said Army Captain Jason Wright in a recent interview with ThinkProgress, adding that moving the detainees back to communal living might help end the mass fast. Indeed, Guantanamo’s Standard Operating Procedure on dealing with hunger strikes says “in the event of a mass strike, isolating hunger striking patients from each other is vital to prevent them from achieving solidarity.”

While Obama is expected to announce in a major national security speech on Thursday that his administration will begin transferring some detainees out of Gitmo, lawmakers are also increasing pressure to close the prison. Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, sent a letter to Obama urging him to appoint a special envoy to close Gitmo, and Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) is circulating a letter for signatures demanding Guantanamo’s closure.

The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee in a letter to President Obama on Tuesday praised the president’s renewed commitment to close the Guantanamo Bay prison but urged Obama to appoint a senior official charged with working to close the facility.

“I write to add my strong support to your efforts to re-engage with Congress on this issue,” Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) said. “I will do everything I can to aid those efforts.”

The State Department in January reassigned Daniel Fried, the special envoy for closing Gitmo, and did not replace him. Attorney General Eric Holder said this month that the administration is “in the process now” to fill the position, and Smith is urging action:

I ask you to appoint a senior official, either to your White House staff or to a senior position within the Department of State, charged with leading the renewed efforts to transfer those detainees held at GTMO who have been cleared for transfer by the Guantanamo Detainee Review Task Force. The appointment of a senior leader to negotiate and effectuate international detainee transfers is fundamental to a renewed effort to close GTMO.

Obama can order Defense Secretary Hagel to start transferring detainees out of Guantanamo, particularly 59 Yemenis who have been cleared for release. Not only would that begin the process of closing Gitmo — and perhaps even end the ongoing hunger strike there — but it’s relatively non-controversial because, as the Los Angeles Times reported last week, the Yemenis’ “new government wants them back.”

Smith agrees:

I also ask you to make several efforts to expedite the transfer of detainees whose transfer from GTMO will not hurt the security of the United States. First, request Secretary of Defense Hagel to study the feasibility of using the national security waiver to transfer low-risk detainees. Second, implement a limited waiver of your ban on transfers to Yemen.

While the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), has also written Obama offering support for closing Gitmo, getting the rest of Congress, particularly Republicans, to sign on is going to be a tough sell. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) says he wants the prison closed but has so-far just complained that Obama has “never come up with a viable plan.”

“Congress has blocked it, so he’s going to have to find a way to remove the blockages of Congress, and hopefully he’ll let us know how he’ll do that,” Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) said Tuesday, according to the Hill.

More than 100 detainees are officially on hunger strike at Gitmo, and 31 are being force-fed — a practice rights groups have condemned as a violation of international law and possibly torture. “It’s getting uglier and uglier at Gitmo,” Smith told the Hill.

“The level of embarrassment is growing and the cost is growing, so is that enough to persuade [Members of Congress] that it’s time to change positions?” Smith added. “We’re going to have that debate.” (HT: Carol Rosenberg)

The most expensive prison in the world recently became even more costly. The Guantanamo Bay prison is badly in need of renovation and it’s going to cost the American taxpayer nearly $200 million to do it.

“The mess hall, the barracks for my military personnel down there are just ramshackle,” Southern Command commander Gen. John Kelly told Foreign Policy this week. “No one thought [Gitmo] would be open this long, so they didn’t build any accommodations for the troops.”

That $200 million is on top of the $150 million it costs each year — setting aside the moral, tactical and strategic costs — to operate the prison and military court system — that’s around $900,000 per detainee. To put that number into perspective, the Federal government pays around $60,000 per inmate, per year in a maximum security prison and an average of $30,000 across all federal prisons.

“That … may be what finally gets us to actually close the prison. I mean the costs are astronomical, when you compare them to what it would cost to detain somebody in the United States,” CAP’s Ken Gude recently told Reuters.

Or perhaps what might move Congress and the President is what the U.S. government could spend that money on otherwise, Reuters has some examples:

Just one inmate from Guantanamo, for example, is equivalent to the cost of 12 weeks of White House tours for the public — a treasured tradition that the Secret Service says costs $74,000 a week and that has been axed under sequestration.

A single inmate is also the equivalent of keeping open the control tower at the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport for 45 months. That control tower, another victim of cuts, costs $20,000 per month to run.

The $900,000 also matches the funding for nearly seven states to help serve home delivered meals to the elderly. Sequestration has cost Meals on Wheels a median shortfall of $129,497 per state, the organization says.

Or measured in terms of military spending and national security, the cost of four inmates represents the cost of training an Air Force fighter pilot – based on the Department of Defense’s figure of $3.6 million per pilot.

President Obama agrees. As the hunger strike and force-feeding crises at Gitmo were heating up, the President announced last month that he would renew his administration’s long-stalled efforts to close the prison. “I think it is critical for us to understand that Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe,” he said, adding: “It is expensive. It is inefficient. It hurts us in terms of our international standing. It lessens cooperation with our allies on counterterrorism efforts. It is a recruitment tool for extremists. It needs to be closed.”

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On February 6, a number of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison started a hunger strike after guards there allegedly searched their Qurans, an act the detainees viewed as mistreating Islam’s holy book and saw as violating a long-standing agreement with authorities at Gitmo. But now the hunger strike is 100 days old with no end in sight. Dozens more prisoners have joined the protest (102 of the 166 detainees by the military’s count, but detainee lawyers say the number is closer to 130) and the military says 30 hunger strikers are being force-fed, mostly against their will.

While the hunger strike has had the benefit of sparking wider media attention to the detainees’ predicament and renewing interest in closing the Guantanamo Bay prison, particularly from President Obama, the situation in and of itself is looking more like a lose-lose proposition for all sides involved: a public relations disaster for the U.S. military and the Obama administration and, for the detainees, many of whom have been cleared for release, malnutrition, the possibility of being force-fed — which experts and rights groups say violates international law and could be viewed as torture — or perhaps even death.

Ultimately, the problems at Guantanamo Bay won’t end until the prison is closed. But lawyers for hunger striking detainees have said that, at the very least, there are seemingly non-complicated ways to end this hunger strike. Listed below are some ways, they said, to achieve that result. And indeed, one possible prescription for beginning to end the hunger strike could also serve as one step in the process of closing the Gitmo prison all together:

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A group of human rights organizations is calling on Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to abandon force-feeding hunger striking detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The Miami Herald’s Carol Rosenberg reports:

The American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Victims of Torture, Human Rights Watch and 17 other groups wrote the Pentagon on Monday … [calling] Guantánamo’s force-feeding process “inherently cruel, inhuman, and degrading.”

“We urgently request that you order the immediate and permanent cessation of all force-feeding of Guantánamo prisoners who are competent and capable of forming a rational judgment as to the consequences of refusing food,” they wrote.

The letter also asked Hagel to allow “independent medical professionals” access to the prison to “review and monitor the status of hunger-striking prisoners in a manner consistent with international ethical standards.”

While other groups like the American Medical Association and the Constitution Project’s task force on terror detainees have also condemned force-feeding at Gitmo, the rights groups’ letter comes after Al-Jazeera reported on Monday the contents of the Guantanamo Bay Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for managing hunger strikes at the prison. The documents illustrate “a brutal and dehumanising medical procedure that requires [detainees] to wear masks over their mouths while they sit shackled in a restraint chair for as long as two hours.”

A lawyer representing several Gitmo prisoners said last week that “detainees have described the experience of having the tube snaked down your throat as being like having a razor blade pulled down.” The lawyer, David Remes, said the military uses force-feeding to prevent detainees from becoming martyrs.

The SOP makes clear that the prison commander, not doctors and nurses, has the final authority regarding whether a detainee is to be force-fed and that only “reasonable efforts” are needed to get consent from a hunger striking detainee to begin force-feeding.

Leonard Rubenstein, a lawyer at the Center for Public Health and Human Rights at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Heath and the Berman Institute of Bioethics, told Al-Jazeera that the SOP is “Orwellian.”

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