The Cost of Guantanamo
Total Guantanamo Bay Prison Facility Costs
- Cost of Guantanamo prison facility up to the end of 2015: $5.687 billion
- Cost for 2015: $445 million
- Not included in above costs:
- Cost of camp headquarters, built in 2004: $13.5 million
- Cost of Camp 7 (for “high-value” detainees): Classified
- Cost of Justice Department, FBI, and CIA involvement in detention operations: Unknown
2014 Costs
- Money appropriated by Congress for un-built fiber-optic cable: $31 million
- U.S. Army costs for operations and maintenance, including contract intelligence analysts, librarians and linguists: $61.5 million
- U.S. Navy costs for detainee operations security: $46.5 million
- Money paid to Naval Base Guantanamo: $67.4 million
- Military Commissions complex, including security, translation, flights from DC: $121.8 million
- Review boards for Guantanamo detainees not cleared for release: $15.1 million
Guantanamo Prison Compared to U.S. Federal Prison
- Annual cost per detainee at Guantanamo: More than $10 million
- Annual cost per prisoner at federal Supermax prison (Florence, CO): $78,000
- Annual cost per prisoner at federal maximum security prison: $34,046
- Annual cost savings of moving detainees to U.S. prison according to Defense Department plan to close Guantanamo: $65-85 million
Sources:
Carol Rosenberg, “Texas firm wins $3.1M contract to lay fiber-optic cable to Guantanamo,” The Miami Herald, May 15, 2014: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/guantanamo/article1964511.html
Representative Adam Smith, Statement at Senate Judiciary Subcommittee Hearing on “Closing Guantanamo: The National Security, Fiscal, and Human Rights Implication,” July 24, 2013: http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/7-24-13SmithTestimony.pdf
Department of Defense GTMO Facility Costs, December 7, 2014: http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/sites/default/files/Feinstein-DOD-Guantanamo-Costs-01-Dec-14.pdf.
