Dear Congress: Stop Holding Hearings On Gitmo, and Just Close It (PolicyMic)

Op-ed by Lieutenant. General Robert Gard, USA (Ret.)

In his second full day in office, President Obama declared his intent to close the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Yet that facility continues in operation and it stands as a symbol of the mistreatment of prisoners that was mirrored at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, where vivid disclosures of the torture of detainees by American troops shocked the world.

This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights will convene the first congressional hearing on Guantanamo since 2009. As it does, members of the committee should examine all that Guantanamo and indefinite detention have cost, and are costing, the United States. It should also use its findings to shape the Senate’s upcoming consideration of the annual defense bill that includes key provisions to expedite the facility’s closure.