Obama Lifts Moratorium on Transfer of Detainees
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/us/politics/obama-lifts-moratorium-on-transfer-of-some-detainees.html
May 23, 2013
Obama Lifts Moratorium on Transfer of Detainees
By CHARLIE SAVAGE [Obama White House] [113th congress, 1st session] [U.S counterterrorism strategy that was published in June 2011] [both NSC principals (special subgroup for covert action) and bureaucracy] [GSAVE] [LWOT] [some changes in the policy—in effect since Bush and 2006—with respect to POWs from GSAVE] [use psci 355-455, 463] [followup] [this “shift” was presaged in Scott Wilson’s piece yesterday on an ongoing debate inside the administration] [*]
WASHINGTON — President Obama on Thursday lifted a moratorium on repatriating low-level inmates from the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to Yemen and, in a surprise move, announced the creation of a new Pentagon position to spearhead the transfer of detainees.
While it was far from clear that Mr. Obama’s aim to shutter the prison — which he tried but failed to close in his first term — would be achieved anytime soon, he also began a renewed push to winnow down the 166-inmate population.
Transfers of low-level detainees dried up after Congress imposed steep restrictions in January 2011, and the administration has to date not used its ability to issue case-by-case waivers to those restrictions. That has stranded 86 detainees who have been approved for transfer if security conditions could be met.
Of those, 56 are from Yemen, where Mr. Obama had forbidden transfers after a branch of Al Qaeda based in Yemen tried to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner on Dec. 25, 2009. In his national security address, Mr. Obama said it was now time to allow transfers to Yemen on a case-by-case basis.
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