Similar to ending the war in Afghanistan, President Joe Biden faces a complex task in closing the vexed Guantanamo Bay detention center that still houses 39 detainees, including a handful of prisoners that plotted the Sept. 11 attacks.
The White House says it intends to shutter the prison on the U.S. base in Cuba, even though most of the 39 men still held have never been charged with a crime. How or when the administration will carry out that plan remains unclear, though early moves to free one prisoner and place five others on a list of men eligible for release have generated optimism among some eager to see it close, including prisoners.
It's not surprising, really, that no one made long-term plans for the detention center. It was a makeshift project from the start.
Following the invasion of Afghanistan, in reaction to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the U.S. wanted a place to hold the hundreds of prisoners from dozens of countries swept up by American forces, many handed over, as it turned out later, in exchange for bounties regardless of whether they had a connection to al-Qaida or the Taliban.
A photo released by the Pentagon showed the first detainees, clad in orange jumpsuits, and kneeling in outdoor cages under the tropical sun.
As reports emerged of brutal treatment, Associated Press Reporter Ben Fox said Guantanamo became a source of international outrage, undercutting the sympathy and support the U.S. drew after the 9/11 attacks.
"Very early on, there were reports of detainees being mistreated, interrogated in brutal ways, and just the very notion of holding people indefinitely without charge just caused a lot of outrage in the world," Fox said.
"And the steel cages were really interesting because it showed just how unprepared the U.S. was to hold hundreds of detainees on this sleepy Navy base in Cuba," Fox added. "I mean, they essentially weren't ready... There was no infrastructure there. They had these wooden huts where they did the interrogations."
The U.S. held 779 prisoners at Guantanamo over time and spent hundreds of millions constructing and operating what now looks like a small state prison.
As years passed, the population steadily shrunk as the U.S. decided some men no longer posed a threat and weren't worth holding amid legal challenges.
Bush would ultimately let 532 prisoners out. Obama released 197. Trump released a single detainee, a Saudi who went back to his homeland after striking a plea deal in the problem-plagued military commissions.
"They reduced the detainee population, but they weren't able to close it. And that is essentially where Biden has it now, like, can he get, you know, the ball all the way down the field?" Fox said.
The challenge then, as now, remains what to do with the some of the men at Guantanamo, including a dozen or so the U.S. isn't ready to release. Among them are Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, a senior al-Qaida figure considered the architect of the 9/11 attacks, who faces a trial by military commission with four co-defendants that — amid legal and logistical challenges, personnel issues and the pandemic — has bogged down in the pretrial stage at a specially built high-security courtroom for more than 9 years, with no start in sight.
"If it ever goes to trial, it will be a jury of military officers who decide his fate. It's a death penalty case. So in theory, these guys could get the death penalty if convicted," Fox said. "Will we ever get to that? We don't know. This thing has been dragged on since May 2012 in the pretrial stage. There have been 42 rounds of pretrial hearings."
In a sign that the political winds might be shifting, Congress recently stripped the prohibition on transferring Guantanamo Bay prisoners to the U.S. from the Pentagon authorization and eliminated funding for the detention center from next year's budget. It remains to be seen whether that will change, particularly after several former prisoners, released under both Bush and Obama, emerged as Taliban leaders in Afghanistan.
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