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The Scouting Report | Number 23

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A Governance Studies Event

The Scouting Report: Delays in Closing Guantánamo Bay

Guantánamo, Law and Security, Terrorism, U.S. Department of Justice

Event Summary

President Obama recently announced that his administration will need at least six more months to devise a long-term plan for detainees who cannot be tried but are considered too dangerous for release. Obama has not backed down from his promise to close the military detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba by January 2010, but delays in the process raise questions about whether or not this is still an attainable goal.

The Scouting Report

Event Information

When

Wednesday, July 29, 2009
12:30 PM to 1:30 PM

Where

Online Only
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC
Map

Contact: Brookings Office of Communications

Email: events@brookings.edu

Phone: 202.797.6105

Brookings expert Benjamin Wittes, who supports the development of new legislation to govern indefinite detention inside the United States, joined Fred Barbash, senior editor at Politico, in a live web chat about the challenges the Obama administration faces in closing Guantánamo. 

Read the chat transcript »
 

Transcript

12:30 Fred Barbash - moderator: Hello and thanks for joining us. Today's topic: delays in closing the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. With us to answer your questions is Brookings senior fellow Benjamin Wittes. Thanks for being here, Ben.

12:30 Benjamin Wittes: Thanks for having me.

12:31 [Comment From Jason] Do you think it was a mistake for President Obama to announce the closure of Guantanamo without addressing where current detainees would be transferred, as many in Congress have stated?

12:31 Benjamin Wittes: It was probably a mistake to announce a specific date for the closure of Guantánamo without a detailed sense of how to handle the myriad issues the closure would necessarily raise. (Several of us were warning about the difficulty of the project early on.) That said, I don’t think it was a mistake to announce an intention to close the facility at the outset of the administration—and I think the deadline was a very forgivable error.

Participants

Expert

Benjamin Wittes

Senior Fellow, Governance Studies

Moderator

Fred Barbash

Senior Editor
Politico


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