Most presidential hopefuls give only lip service to closing Guantanamo

Calls to shut down the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, grow louder by the day, from the Secretary of Defense to every Democratic presidential candidate — and one Republican hopeful. Yet despite such enthusiasm, only one of the Hill’s White House contenders has backed legislation to close Guantanamo’s notorious doors.

{mosads}Three Democrats have backed Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-Calif.) plan to shutter Guantanamo, while Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) is alone on his closure bill, introduced late last month with endorsements from a litany of human-rights groups. Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), who regularly vow to close Guantanamo on the campaign trail, have yet to officially offer or support any measure that does so.

Even Guantanamo’s most virulent critics acknowledge that no easy solution exists to retire the facility and end the legal limbo of its 386 residents. But human-rights advocates and the few Democrats pressing shutdown measures agree that the time has come to lend presidential-candidate timber to specific plans.

“That would signal that this should be a priority issue for both parties, particularly [among] the Democratic candidates,” a lawyer and fellow at Human Rights First, Devon Chaffee, said. “Presidential candidates coming out in support of Senator Harkin’s proposal would be a positive shift in that direction.”

Harkin’s bill would transfer Guantanamo detainees to U.S. facilities to face charges, under the aegis of federal courts, military courts-martial or the military commissions created by the Bush administration. Feinstein’s bill would allow detainees to remain in U.S. custody without charge after leaving Guantanamo, a sticking point that sources say concerns Obama and other Democrats.

Harkin and his interest-group allies are making a new pitch for cosponsors, emphasizing his inclusion of appropriations limits that make the bill a prime candidate for floor votes on the 2008 defense-spending bill.

“We will of course focus our initial efforts on those senators who have already called for closing Guantanamo,” Harkin spokeswoman Jennifer Mullin said. “We think that when they look at the details of Senator Harkin’s legislation, it will be relatively easy to persuade them to sign on.”

One source tracking the Guantanamo closure debate said the lack of supporters for Feinstein’s approach is surprising, particularly given the possibility of future tweaks to its language.

 “For candidates who are serious about closing Guantanamo, there’s really no justification for not supporting [Feinstein’s] bill,” this source said.

Obama has urged the White House to close Guantanamo several times in recent weeks, during appearances in Washington, Seattle and Richmond, Va.

“We need to bring to a close this sad chapter in American history … And while we are at it, we can close down Guantanamo and we can restore habeas corpus and we can lead with our ideas and our values,” Obama said last month in Richmond.

Clinton called for the facility’s shutdown at an April 26 Armed Services Committee hearing, stating that the prison “compromises our long-term military and strategic interests, and it impairs our standing overseas.” Spokesman Philippe Reines said yesterday that Clinton is a cosponsor of Feinstein’s bill, but the Library of Congress website does not list the New Yorker as a formal backer.

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), the only White House contender to support a Guantanamo closure bill formally, yesterday renewed his call to close Guantanamo. Reviving the technique that helped to win new supporters for binding Iraq withdrawal language last month, Dodd challenged his 2008 rivals to endorse his plan to restore habeas corpus and other legal rights to Guantanamo detainees.

“We cannot wait for the next president to restore our moral authority — we have to restore our standing in the world by having the conviction to stand up to this president now,” Dodd said in a statement. “This begins with closing the prisons at Guantanamo Bay and restoring habeas corpus rights to those in our custody.”

The overwhelming majority of Democrats is expected to back the habeas corpus restoration that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the panel’s ranking Republican, won approval for last week. And advocates such as Jen Daskal, U.S. advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, believe that reinstating habeas corpus should be the initial focus of the legislative movement toward a Guantanamo shutdown.

“Restoring habeas corpus is the most important first step to restoring the accuracy and credibility of U.S. detention policy,” Daskal said. “Closing Guantanamo … is also critical to restoring U.S. moral authority and ending a system of lawless detention that has become an albatross around the government’s neck.”

Christopher Anders, legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said he expects more Democrats to sign on to Harkin’s bill in coming days. Harkin’s choice of Fort Leavenworth, Kan., as a designated destination for transferred detainees made the difference to Anders, as it tracks with the preferred closure method of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), another anti-Guantanamo 2008 frontrunner.

“The problem that supporters of [closing] Guantanamo ran into earlier this year was when [Rep. John] Murtha (D-Pa.) and [Rep. Jim] Moran (D-Va.) were looking at the problem, they ran through a number of different options of detention facilities in the U.S.,” Anders said. “In fact, if you take Harkin’s approach and force the government to make a decision … you’re dealing with a number that can be brought to Leavenworth.”

Most of McCain’s GOP White House rivals criticize Guantanamo shutdown as a national security risk that could encourage detainees to foment future violence. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) last month called for doubling the size of Guantanamo’s capacity, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) called closure “more symbolic than it is a substantive issue.”