Pentagon officials are finishing up a report regarding which facilities in the United States seem suitable to house Guantanamo Bay detainees.
Now that the Pentagon has finished surveying the two facilities in Colorado, Federal Correctional Complex in Florence and the state prison in Canon City, the team is set to prepare a report that will soon end up in the hands of Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who will then forward it over to the White House, Defense One reports.
“The assessment team met with facility staff to discuss the existing facilities, engineering considerations, force protection, troop housing, security, transportation, information security, contracting and other operational issues,” Navy Cdr. Gary Ross said in a statement to Defense One.
Once the White House has a look at the document, it’ll be passed to Congress for consideration, even though Republicans with the exception of GOP Sen. [crscore]John McCain[/crscore] are ardently opposed to the idea of moving dangerous detainees to U.S. soil. The legislators especially concerned are the ones whose states have been surveyed for potential facilities. This includes Kansas, South Carolina and most recently Colorado.
Guantanamo Bay is a major point of contention between the White House and Congress. The annual defense budget bill was met with a veto from President Barack Obama because of additional restrictions included in the bill.
“This legislation specifically impedes our ability to close Guantanamo in a way I have repeatedly argued is counterproductive to our efforts to defeat terrorism around the world,” Obama said at the veto ceremony.
The report is a final attempt to shutter the facility and fulfill Obama’s original campaign promise in 2008, as only 15 months are left in Obama’s presidency.
According to CNN, the plan is likely to request a faster transfer pace for those already cleared for release. The rest of the detainees, who will be kept in prison indefinitely, will be sent to the U.S. for detention. But that requires Congress to cooperate and to strike down a law which bans exactly this practice.
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