Obama orders closure of Guantanamo

WASHINGTON, Jan 22: President Barack Obama signed executive orders on Thursday to close the Guantanamo Bay detention centre and directed the Central Intelligence Agency to shut its network of secret prisons.The orders rewrite rules for the detention of terrorism suspects, and require all US personnel to follow the US Army Field Manual while interrogating detainees.The orders also require an immediate review of the 245 detainees still held at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to determine if they should be transferred, released or prosecuted.This is his third move in two days, all aimed at reversing the unpopular policies of his predecessor George W. Bush.On Tuesday, only hours after his inauguration, President Obama had ordered a freeze on new or proposed regulations at all government agencies and departments.On Wednesday, US military judges, acting on Mr Obama’s directive, suspended trials for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo for 120 days pending a review of the military tribunals.On Thursday, Mr Obama acted again and began to dismantle Mr Bush’s strategy for dealing with terror suspects in US custody. The moves show that the new president is wasting no time in reversing his predecessor’s legacy.With three executive orders and a presidential directive signed in the Oval Office, Mr Obama also started reshaping how the United States prosecutes and questions Al Qaeda, Taliban and other terror suspects.The centrepiece order would close the much-maligned US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within a year.Another order ends a CIA programme that kept terrorism suspects in secret custody for months or years, a practice that has brought fierce criticism from foreign governments and human rights activists.The order also prohibits the CIA from using coercive interrogation methods, requiring the agency to follow the same rules used by the military in interrogating terrorism suspects.The manual explicitly prohibits threats, coercion, physical abuse and ‘waterboarding’, a technique that creates the sensation of drowning and has been termed a form of torture by critics. The technique has been used on prisoners at Guantanamo.Mr Obama also created a task force that would have 30 days to recommend policies on handling terror suspects to be detained in the future. Specifically, the group would look at where those detainees should be housed since Guantanamo is closing.He directed the Justice Department to review the case of Qatar native Ali Al-Marri, the only enemy combatant currently held on US soil. The review will look at whether Al-Marri has the right to sue the government for his freedom, a right the Supreme Court already has given to Guantanamo detainees.The directive will ask the high court for a stay in Al-Marri’s appeals case while the review is ongoing. The government says Al-Marri is an Al Qaeda sleeper agent.An estimated 245 men are being held at the US naval base in Cuba, most of them detained for years without charge.The orders issued on Thursday, however, leave unresolved complex questions. They do not explain whether, where and how many of the Guantanamo detainees are to be prosecuted.They also allow Mr Obama to reinstate the CIA’s detention and interrogation operations in the future, if major suspects like Osama bin Laden or his top lieutenants are captured.Congressional aides, briefed by administration officials, said the White House is considering another proposal to add more aggressive interrogation techniques to the US Army Field Manual. By Anwar Iqbal