Obama renews bid to close Gitmo
With little more than two years to go in his second term, President Obama is putting a special emphasis on a key campaign promise from 2008: closing the terrorism prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Recent transfers have reduced the Gitmo prison population to 136, and officials are optimistic that more countries will start taking more detainees.
The Associated Press reports that Obama recently called a meeting of top officials to emphasize his desire to close a facility that he says has becoming a recruiting tool for jihadists worldwide.
"The presidential lecture was the culmination of months of White House frustration with his own administration's inaction. Since then, the a dozen prisoners have been transferred overseas — more than all of last year and the most since 2010. ...
With the sudden surge in transfers, Guantanamo is now at a turning point. The prisoner population is at 136 — down from a high of near 700 and its lowest point since shortly after it opened in January 2002 — with 68 of the prisoners cleared for transfer. Officials have said at least five more will be moved by Dec. 31."