Congresswoman Niki Tsongas expressed enthusiastic approval of President Obama’s proposal to finally close Guantanamo Bay, in an interview with Jim Braude and Margery Eagan on Boston Public Radio on Tuesday. “I think it’s a very important effort that he has made, in terms of moving to relocate as many of the prisoners there as possible,” Tsongas said. “Keeping it open is a remarkable cost to this country, and I do think that American prisons could safely keep these terrorists from harming us.”
In President Obama’s first week in the white house, he vowed to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. With a few months left in office, the president delivered a plan to Congress to close the facility, which he announced in short remarks at the white house. ““For many years, it’s been clear that the detention facility at Guantanamo does not advance our national security—it undermines it,” Obama said in a short speech. “...Moreover, keeping this facility open is contrary to our values. It undermines our standing in the world. It is viewed as a stain on our broader record of upholding the highest standards of rule of law.”
The written plan describes closing Guantanamo as a “national security imperative.” According to the report, the facility currently holds 91 detainees, after more than 85 percent of the nearly 800 prisoners were transferred by the Obama administration. In the president’s remarks at the white house, he argued that Guantanamo works against national interests, by provoking terrorists to create propaganda, draining military resources, and hurting relationships between the United States and other countries. “When I talk to other world leaders,” Obama said, “they bring up the fact that Guantanamo is not resolved.”
The president said he would use “all legal tools to deal with the remaining detainees,” and the plan suggests 13 possible sites in the United States for detainee transfers. The plan, which is now before Congress, has already been criticized by Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, and Chairman of the Armed Services Committee John McCain, who criticized Obama’s strategy.
According to Tsongas, proposals to shut Guantanamo appear frequently, and then fade away. “On the armed services committee, it comes up quite often, most often in amendment form, as we’re doing each year’s defense bill,” she said. “Given the numbers on the committee and the composition of the committee, those amendments never pass. Because on the other side of the aisle, there is no support, or very little support, for closing Guantanamo.”
These decisions, Tsongas said, rely on the composition of the legislative bodies themselves. “In so many instances, it comes down to numbers,” she said. “When the philosophical difference is reinforced by the differences and the majority carries the day, we have little chance to move ahead. That being said, I think the president is wisely looking for ways to bring Guantanamo to a close.”
Congresswoman Niki Tsongas is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts 3rd district. To hear more from her interview with Boston Public Radio, click on the audio link above.
