President Obama previously said he would close the detention facility at the Cuban prison as one if his first acts in office.
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Obama said he was well aware that passing a plan to close the facility would be hard with a GOP-led Congress.
The plan would send detainees who have been cleared for transfer to their homelands or third countries and transfer remaining prisoners to U.S. soil to be held in maximum-security prisons.
He talked about several potential scenarios, including moving the facility to the U.S.
Speaking at a press conference in the White House, Obama said for the 91 detainees now held in Guantanamo Bay, some would be transferred, and his administration would review the threat posed by detainees who were not eligible for transfers and identify those eligible for military trials, reports Xinhua.
“I’ve been working for seven years now to get this thing closed”. He added: “I don’t want to pass this problem on to the next president, whoever it is”.
“Perhaps the news has yet to reach the White House”, said Pennsylvania Congressman Lou Barletta (R-11) in a written statement, “but the terrorists have not declared a cease-fire”.
“Let us do what is right for America”, Obama said, seeking to close a chapter in the country’s fight against terrorism.
Through the Department of Defense (DoD), Obama handed Congress his plan for closing the facility.
The Pentagon says that keeping the Guantanamo prison open is between $65 million and $85 million more expensive per year than holding the detainees in a prison in the United States. To do this, Congress would need lift a ban on the transfer of Gitmo detainees to US soil.
“I would leave it just the way it is, and I would probably fill it up with more people that are looking to kill us”, he said in an interview that aired Sunday on “Election Central with Rita Cosby” on WABC radio.
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“For years, the facility at Guantanamo Bay has been a valuable tool in our counterterrorism efforts”. But his attempt to move forward on his 2008 campaign promise in the final year of his presidency is not expected to make any headway in Congress, where Republicans have opposed the plan for years.
