Obama details plan to close Gitmo, bring detainees to U.S.

Just as 2015 was coming to a close, one of the Guantanamo Bay detainees released by the Obama administration was confirmed to be back in terrorism as a leader of an al-Qaida branch in Yemen.

Then last month, Fox News reported that the Obama administration quietly had transferred 10 Yemeni detainees from the prison at Guantanamo Bay to neighboring Oman.

The deal was done so quietly "that the news was first reported by state-run Middle East news agencies," the report said. "And once the news got to Capitol Hill, it set off alarm bells given the host country’s proximity to al-Qaida's most active branch."

It was only about a year ago that it was reported by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that 116 Guantanamo Bay inmates who had been released in recent years had returned to their terror battlefields or taken back up with their former terrorist organizations.

On Tuesday, Obama announced his four-point plan to close down the Guantanamo center completely and release more detainees, transferring "the most dangerous" into the United States.

"We can improve our security, uphold our highest values around the world and save Americans money," he said.

The free WND special report “ISIS Rising,” by Middle East expert and former Department of Defense analyst Michael Maloof, will answer your questions about the jihadist army threatening the West.

In what may be his last effort to fulfill a campaign promise he made not quite a decade ago, he said he wants to send 35 of the remaining 91 detainees overseas, speed up the review of the remaining 56 to see "whether they're eligible for transfer" and then use "all of the legal tools" he has to handle their cases.

Then he wants to "work with" Congress, the report said, to pick somewhere in the United States to move the few that remain.

The prison at the U.S. Naval base in Cuba was set up in January 2002 following the previous September's terror attacks in the United States. It was selected to detain terrorist suspects.

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The closure plan, which Obama said he's sending to Congress, will face opposition there, since that body already has voted to ban any effort to bring terror suspects at Guantanamo into the United States.

Obama's proposal suggests spending almost half-a-billion dollars to accomplish the plan, but he says millions would be saved by not having to run the Guantanamo prison.

Congress, however, has argued that such a facility, and its occupants – suspected of being the worst of the worst – would pose a national security risk.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest already has said the administration isn't certain it can work with Congress, however. And Obama might go ahead anyway, he said.

"My pessimism is rooted in the way that Congress has handled this issue over the last seven years," he said. "If there's an opportunity for members of Congress to take a look at the plan with an open mind, I think there's a compelling case to be made."

The Wall Street Journal said while current law prohibits the transfer of prisoners from Guantanamo to the U.S., Obama "would have to use executive action if he can't work with Congress to change the current law, and has hinted he would do so."

The administration has identified locations in Kansas, South Carolina and Colorado as potential locations to move the terror suspects, but members of Congress from those areas have said the plan is unacceptable.

The American Center for Law & Justice immediately said Obama's plans would put Americans in grave danger.

"The announcement by President Obama underscores the blatant political nature of this president during his two terms in office," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the ACLJ. "We will work aggressively to ensure that Congress rejects President Obama's plan to close GITMO. Closing GITMO not only places America in grave danger, it bootstraps the next president – continuing a foreign policy that is dangerous to America – a foreign policy that makes it even more difficult to succeed in the war on terror.

"It's tragic that President Obama is more interested in his legacy and fulfilling a flawed campaign promise than taking the appropriate action to safeguard the homeland and eliminate radical jihadists."

It was in January that WND reported one of the men Obama released from Guantanamo, a Bosnian named Tariq Mahmoud Ahmed al-Sawah, admitted to being a member of al-Qaida and developed explosives for the terror group to target U.S. military personnel and civilians, according to a Free Beacon report.

At that time, Clare Lopez, vice president for research and analysis at the Center for Security Policy and a former CIA operations officer, said the Obama administration's release of dangerous jihadists from Guantanamo was done "with no regard for the high likelihood that they will return to jihad as soon as they can is extremely irresponsible and puts American national security interests at risk."

She said some of those released represent "some of the worst of the worst – Yemeni jihadis – to go to Oman, which is right next door to the war-torn base of operations for al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, and is practically guaranteed to augment Islamic terror forces there, probably sooner rather than later."

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, released a statement asking, "What commander in chief would let the enemy go? Answer: President Obama."

“President Obama’s rush to open the jail cells at Guantanamo Bay is reckless, and it puts the American people in danger," McCaul said. "This month he will have released close to 20 percent of the facility’s population, even though intelligence officials suspect nearly one third of terrorists freed from the facility have returned to the fight."

WND reported that even amid the recent terror attacks in Paris, the Pentagon put out a late weekend message saying the United States was sending five suspects from Guantanamo to the United Arab Emirates.

The issue over Obama's agenda to close Gitmo dates back to his arrival in the Oval Office, and back in 2014, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., warned Republican lawmakers would call for Obama’s impeachment if he released more prisoners from Guantanamo Bay without congressional approval.

One of the biggest controversies erupted when Obama released five key terror Taliban leaders from Gitmo in exchange for American hostage Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who later was accused by many of deserting his military post during a time of conflict.

Obama details plan to close Gitmo, bring detainees to U.S.