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Joint Letter to President Obama regarding delays on meeting Guantanamo commitments. October 7, 2013 President Barack Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20500 RE: More than Four-Month Delay in Meeting Two of Your Key Commitments on Closing Guantanamo and Ending Indefinite Detention Dear President Obama: The undersigned human rights, religious, and civil liberties organizations strongly urge your administration to promptly and fully carry out two key commitments you made as steps toward closing the Guantanamo Bay prison and ending indefinite detention. More than four months have passed since you delivered your May 23, 2013 speech at the National Defense University, in which you recommitted the United States to the goal of closing the Guantanamo prison. However, despite your personal commitment and engagement, the population at Guantanamo over the past four months has been reduced by only two detainees, moving only from 166 to 164.

We are particularly concerned that two of your specific commitments have not yet been met: Sincerely, Win Without War. Obama’s failure of leadership on Guantánamo. As Congress begins debate on the 2014 defense authorization bill this week, both the president and the legislature have an opportunity to make meaningful progress toward closing Guantánamo and ending the human rights tragedy there. President Obama has promised to shutter the off-shore prison, which was designed to be outside the law and reserved exclusively for Muslims, but has until now failed to use the power that he has under current law to do it. Congress, meanwhile, has placed unnecessary restrictions on releasing detainees. Obama started out strongly on Guantánamo, but soon lost the initiative and surrendered closure issues to his political opponents in Congress.

They filled the void by enacting legislation restricting – for the first time in American history – the executive’s ability to transfer detainees held in military custody. The practical reality is that transfers have all but ceased because of the current restrictions. This presents a quandary for the administration. WATCH: Senators Heed Call from Retired Admirals and Generals to Close Guantanamo.

National Defense Authorization Act. New NDAA Keeps Indefinite Detention, Blocks Guantanamo Closure. President Barack Obama has signed the $633 billion National Defense Authorization Act of 2013 along with a signing statement objecting to many of its provisions – but the provision allowing the indefinite detention of American citizens suspected of supporting terrorism without charge or trial was not one of them. The president signed the NDAA on Wednesday, January 2 despite his earlier threats to veto it over prohibitions against closing the Guantanamo Bay detainment and interrogation camp, which he had promised to shut down on January 22, 2009 – two days after his first term inauguration. Obama objected to a section of the annual NDAA that restricts the president’s ability to transfer detainees from Guantanamo for repatriation or resettlement in foreign countries or to transfer them to the United States for prosecution in federal criminal court.

Although the president objected to these and other provisions, but he said needed to sign the bill despite his reservations. Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and the NDAA -- an obvious pattern, practice and policy. The Associated Press reported Wednesday that 71 torture victims at Abu Ghraib, the infamous U.S. prison in Iraq, have agreed to a $5 million settlement as a result of a lawsuit against Engility Holdings, a US contractor which ran the prison. The AP says that this will give "some measure of justice for the victims. " However, individual contractors are not being held liable either civilly or -- especially -- criminally.

(This is a pattern set from the very outset of the Obama administration -- allowing obvious, but well-connected, wrongdoers to skate, to walk, to escape accountability for thier misdeeds, while low-level clerks, secretaries, or enlisted types go to jail, taking the brunt of the government's faux "outrage"). Engility was formerly known as L-3 Services and Titan Corporation. As with most civil settlements, Engility has neither admitted nor denied its role in the torture regime at Abu Ghraib. Further, Peter W. Opinion: References: 4 Years After Vow to Close Gitmo, Why Has Obama Signed NDAA Bill Barring Transfer of Its Prisoners? This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN: Efforts to close the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay were dealt another setback last week when President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA. The bill bars the use of federal funds to transfer Guantánamo prisoners to U.S. soil, even for a criminal trial.

It also includes restrictions on the executive branch’s authority to transfer detainees to a foreign country. President Obama says he signed the NDAA’s renewal despite his objections to the Guantánamo provisions. In a signing statement, he said the president has constitutional power to override these restrictions. It was four years ago this month, just after his first inauguration in 2009, that President Obama vowed to close the prison no more than a year later.

AMY GOODMAN: Four years later, 166 men remain locked up at the prison; 86 of them have been cleared for release, but they haven’t been. Welcome back to Democracy Now!