WASHINGTON -- The United States has transferred six lower-level detainees from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where each had been held for more than 13 years, the military announced early Saturday. The departures, to Oman, were the first from the prison since January and reduced the inmate population there to 116.
The six men are all Yemenis and had been held since early 2002 without trial under the laws of war.
In January 2010, a six-agency task force unanimously recommended that they be transferred, if security conditions could be met in the receiving country. But because of the political upheaval and security chaos in Yemen, they remained jailed until now.
The break in the lull of transfers does not appear to signal the start of any flurry of releases. According to officials familiar with Guantanamo policy, no further transfers are imminent, and the weekend releases were not the result of a new decision but rather a leftover piece of a deal negotiated last year, when Oman agreed to accept 10 men. Four Yemeni detainees were resettled in Oman in January. Another Yemeni was sent to Estonia in January.
Still, the six transfers represent a milestone for the administration: When President Barack Obama took office in 2009 -- and vowed to close the prison within a year, a policy goal that he has failed to achieve -- there were 242 detainees at the prison. After this transfer, fewer than half of that number remain.
Obama's plan to close the detention facility, which he has criticized as costly and a symbol for anti-American propaganda, involves moving the remaining detainees to the United States for trial or continued wartime detention in a different prison.
Many Republicans and some civil libertarians oppose that plan. Congress has outlawed moving any detainees onto domestic soil.
On Saturday, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, was among several Republicans who criticized the transfers and the relative secrecy with which they were carried out.
"Despite the high terror threat to our country, the president continues to open the jail cells at Guantanamo Bay, giving potential terrorists the ability to return to the fight," McCaul said in a statement. "The president needs to be up front with the American people, rather than have the release of dangerous detainees buried in a Saturday news dump."
The latest transfers come as Congress is debating the annual defense authorization bill, which continues the ban on moving detainees to domestic territory, as well as a series of restrictions lawmakers have imposed on transfers. The House has passed a version of the bill that would tighten limits in a way that could in effect stop any more releases, including blocking the departure of the 51 men waiting on the transfer list, about 43 of whom are Yemeni.
"We are working feverishly to transfer each of the 51 detainees currently approved for transfer," said Ian Moss, who works on detainee transfers at the State Department. "It is not in our national security interest to continue to detain individuals if we as a government have determined that they can be transferred from Guantanamo responsibly."
The Senate is considering a bill developed by the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, John McCain, R-Ariz., that would instead call for an up-or-down vote in both chambers of Congress on whether to approve an administration plan for moving the remaining detainees to a prison on U.S. soil.
The White House argues that Congress should drop the restrictions. In the event Congress does not permit Obama to resettle more prisoners, White House officials also have been exploring options for unilateral closure.
"The continued operation of the detention facility weakens our national security by draining resources, damaging our relationships with key allies and partners, and emboldening violent extremists," Ned Price, spokesman for White House National Security Council, said in an email Saturday.
The Senate bill also would let the military temporarily move a detainee into the United States for medical treatment. The cost and difficulty of transporting specialized medical equipment and doctors to the prison has been a recurring concern as the detainee population ages. The House bill contains no such provision.
Both bills, however, would impose a ban on transferring any detainees to Yemen. Under the administrations of George W. Bush and Obama, executive branch officials have been reluctant to repatriate Yemenis because of the continuing upheaval there even as similar detainees from other countries were sent home.
The country is facing air attacks from a Saudi-led coalition targeting areas controlled by Shiite Houthi rebels, who earlier overthrew the country's president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. More than 1,000 civilians have died in Yemen since mid-March and more than 1 million people have been displaced, according to United Nations estimates.
Late last year, the Obama administration began resettling Yemenis elsewhere, a process that continued with the weekend transfers to Oman.
The six transfers include Emad Abdullah Hassan, who has been on hunger strikes since 2007 in protest of his confinement without charge since 2002.
In court filings protesting force-feeding practices, Hassan said detainees have been force-fed up to 1 gallon at a time of nutrients and water. The U.S. accuses him of being one of many bodyguards to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and of being part of a group planning to attack NATO and American troops after the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.
The five other detainees sent to Oman were identified by the Pentagon as: Idris Ahmad 'Abd Al Qadir Idris and Jalal Salam Awad Awad, also both alleged bodyguards to bin Laden; Sharaf Ahmad Muhammad Mas'ud, whom the U.S. said fought American soldiers at Tora Bora, Afghanistan, before his capture in Pakistan; Saa'd Nasser Moqbil Al Azani, a religious teacher whom the U.S. believes had ties to bin Laden's religious adviser; and Muhammad Ali Salem Al Zarnuki, who allegedly arrived in Afghanistan as early as 1998 to fight and support the Taliban.
The state-run Oman News Agency reported early Saturday that the men arrived in the sultanate and would be living there "temporarily." Sultan Qaboos bin Said approved the men being in the country to aid the U.S. government while also taking into account the men's "humanitarian circumstances," the agency reported.
"The United States is very grateful to our partner, Oman, for this significant humanitarian gesture, and appreciates the generous assistance of the Government of Oman as we continue our efforts to responsibly reduce the detainee population and ultimately close the detention facility at Guantanamo," Charles Trumbull, the acting special envoy for Guantanamo closure at the State Department, said in a statement Friday night.
Oman's decision to accept the men comes as it has played an increasingly important role in mediation between the U.S. and Iran as world powers try to strike a nuclear deal over the Islamic Republic's contested atomic program.
Sen. Kelly Ayotte, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, noted that Oman shares a border with Yemen, and she said the administration had failed to provide sufficient assurances that the six would not return to the battlefield.
"If they are not securely detained, no one should be surprised if they travel to Yemen and re-engage in terrorist activities," Ayotte, R-N.H., said in a statement.
Typically, former detainees transferred to other countries are subject to surveillance and travel restrictions.
The transfers were the first approved by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, who took office in February. Under the statutory restrictions, the defense secretary must personally approve any transfer and notify Congress that he has determined that any risk of post-release terrorism has been substantially mitigated, then wait 30 days before moving the prisoner.
The officials familiar with Guantanamo detention policy said there were packages for the transfer of two other lower-level detainees, including the proposed repatriation of a Mauritanian man, awaiting Carter's approval, but no pending transfers for which Congress has already been notified.
Information for this article was contributed by Charlie Savage of The New York Times; by Nedra Pickler and Jon Gambrell of The Associated Press; by Adam Goldman and Missy Ryan of The Washington Post; and by Ambereen Choudhury, Kasia Klimasinska, Tony Capaccio, Mike Dorning, Zaid Sabah and Deena Kamel Yousef of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 06/14/2015