$3.3 Million A Year For Each Gitmo Inmate
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The New York Times Sunday editorial focuses on closing the prison and Guantanamo Bay. It’s long overdue.
As of Friday, 115 detainees remain. Nearly half — 53 men — have been cleared for release. The remaining prisoners include 10 who have been convicted in military tribunals or have cases before them, and 52 who have never been charged with a crime but for whom there is currently no path to freedom or due process.
“And it’s not sustainable,” as Mr. Obama said of the prison camp in 2013, in a nice bit of understatement. “The idea that we would still maintain forever a group of individuals who have not been tried — that is contrary to who we are, it is contrary to our interests, and it needs to stop.”
…Republican lawmakers have stood in the way of closing the prison since 2010 by passing legislation that bars the administration from transferring detainees to the United States. They have played on public fears, even though the detainees could be held securely in federal prisons at a tiny fraction of the $3.3 million a year it costs to hold an inmate at Guantánamo.
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