President Barack Obama used the occasion of his State of the Union address to remind the world of his quest to close the prison camps at Guantánamo — in as much a vow as a plea to the members of Congress.
"With the Afghan war ending, this needs to be the year Congress lifts the remaining restrictions on detainee transfers and we close the prison at Guantánamo Bay," Obama said in the address Tuesday night.
Obama ordered his administration to empty the prison camps in the first year of his first term, by Jan 22, 2010. But Congress steadily thwarted that ambition by imposing escalating restrictions on transfers and blocking civilian trials of the captives.
Carol Rosenberg
Miami Herald