Lawmakers Blast Guantanamo’s $2.7 Million Per Prisoner Cost
Photo Credit: JTF GitmoDemocratic lawmakers pushing to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay said on Wednesday its cost has skyrocketed to $2.7 million per inmate this year and argued it is too expensive to keep open while the country is fighting budget deficits.
“This is a massive waste of money,” Senator Dianne Feinstein said during a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on the base.
Guantanamo has been dubbed the most expensive prison on Earth, and President Barack Obama in May cited its cost – then calculated at about $900,000 per prisoner – as one of many reasons to close it.
Representative Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, testified during the hearing that the current cost of operating the facility has jumped to $454 million in the fiscal year ended September 30, according to the U.S. Department of Defense, or about $2.7 million for each of the 166 inmates.
Smith said overall, $4.7 billion has been spent running Guantanamo since the facility opened in 2002. Read more from this story HERE.
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Photo Credit: GettyGuantanamo Bay Prison Divides Senate Panel
By Alexei Koseff. Sharp disagreement over the future of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp dominated the first Senate hearing on the issue in four years.
The meeting Wednesday of a Senate Judiciary Committee subcommittee, held in the wake of a high-profile hunger strike by inmates and renewed calls from President Obama to close the facility, made clear that deep partisan divisions remain over whether keeping the prison open is a threat to national security or a necessity.
Opened at a U.S. Navy base in Cuba in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack, Guantanamo was established by President George W. Bush to hold detainees suspected of connections to global terrorism organizations.
Allegations of abuse and torture of inmates have led to repeated calls for Guantanamo’s closure, and Obama has campaigned twice on the issue, though Congress has passed repeated measures to keep the prison open.
Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), who is chairman of the panel, urged Congress to support Obama’s efforts, which would end the indefinite detention of prisoners without trial and either release them or charge them in American courts. Read more from this story HERE.