U.S. House Maintains Obstacles to Shuttering Guantanamo
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a mammoth annual defense bill Thursday, thumbing its nose at President Barack Obama by including obstacles preventing him from taking steps to close Guantanamo.
The National Defense Authorization Act which lays out military-related budget requests for 2015 passed easily, but Obama has threatened to veto the massive bill if it includes provisions that bar the administration from transferring to U.S. soil any of the detainees still held at the U.S. Naval facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Lawmakers shot down a key amendment, 177 votes to 247, that would have removed what the White House described as the "unwarranted and burdensome restrictions relating to the transfer of Guantanamo detainees."
The amendment's sponsor, Democrat Adam Smith, said he was "disappointed" the effort to close Guantanamo fell short, saying "I won't stop fighting to pass this critical legislation."
Obama scolded lawmakers in January during his State of the Union address, declaring 2014 would be the year Congress finally moves to close Guantanamo and transfer the remaining detainees, nearly half of whom have already been cleared for repatriation or transfer to a third country.
After a prolonged battle between Democrats and Republicans, Congress reached a compromise last December to ease some conditions that would allow transfer of some prisoners to foreign countries.
But they stood firm on refusing to allow detainees to be transferred to U.S. soil for trial, treatment or imprisonment, upholding the provisions first introduced in 2011.
On Wednesday the White House gave its backing to Smith's measure, saying "nearly a half billion dollars per year is an unacceptable price to pay for a facility that wastes our resources, creates friction with our allies, and undermines our standing in the world."
It also threatened a veto of the massive defense bill by Obama if it did not do away with the restrictions.
More than 12 years after the arrival of the first 20 detainees at Guantanamo on January 11, 2002, the prison still holds 154 men. A total of 779 people have been detained there, most of them without charge or trial.
The defense bill, amounting to $521.3 billion -- $31 billion less than the 2014 bill -- covers a vast number of programs including weapons systems, military bases, personnel wages.
It includes an additional $79.4 billion for war operations in Afghanistan.
Amid efforts to cut waste and update equipment, the Pentagon had proposed retiring the Cold War-era "tank-killing" A-10 Warthog support aircraft, but lawmakers retained its funding.