Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp News

ISLAMABAD: President Barack Obama's speech on the use of drones and the fate of Guantanamo prisoners was largely welcomed Friday in two key countries affected by the policies Pakistan and Yemen.

When President Obama delivered a major speech on America's drone program and the ongoing existence of the Guantanamo prison, the majority of those most affected by the latter - the prisoners themselves - were, ironically, unable to hear his speech.

US President Barack Obama has lifted a moratorium on the transfer of Yemeni prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay as part of a renewed push to close the detention camp.

So why should anyone think closure is any more likely now than it was five years ago? The idea of shuttering the facility, a legacy of the early days of the war on terror, has consistently run into problems stemming from a lack of good alternatives, resistance to conducting terror trials in the U.S. and a wall of Republican opposition.

President Obama is once again calling for the prison at Guantanamo Bay to be shut down, even though new polls suggest most Americans want it to stay open.

When he talked about the need to shut down Guantanamo, he said: "Look at the current situation, where we are force-feeding detainees who are holding a hunger strike.

When Barack Obama ran for president of the United States in 2008, his message of hope and change gave us, the citizens of lesser republics, hope that he would close Guantanamo and shut down programs where extrajudicial killing or bribing foreign heads of state with American taxpayer dollars had become standard practice.

Early on, the president promised to shutter the prison in a year's time. Then a plan came late and Democratic allies were abandoned.

Flanked by several GOP colleagues who echoed his remarks, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., blasted the president's declaration that the war on terror "must end" as premature and foolhardy, saying that a desire to bring the war "to a compete closure contradicts the reality of the facts on the ground," and arguing that "al Qaeda will be with us for a long ... (more)

Warning of the danger of keeping America on a "perpetual wartime footing," President Obama called for an end to the war on terror, explaining, "Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue, but this war, like all wars, must end - that's what history advises; that's what our democracy demands." Flanked by several GOP ... (more)

14, 1973 file photo, released prisoner of war John McCain is greeted by President Richard Nixon, left, in Washington.

Congressional Republicans reacted strongly and negatively Thursday to President Barack Obama 's proposals to close down the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, criticizing the possible move as "ill-conceived." They also panned his proposal to eventually repeal the post-9/11 law sending the U.S. military into action.

In a wide-ranging speech at the National Defense University, in Washington D.C., Thursday, President Obama launched a spirited defense of his administration's efforts to pursue terrorists overseas, even while he outlined a more limited path forward in the fight against terror.

WASHINGTON: Declaring America at a "crossroads" in the fight against terrorism, President Barack Obama on Thursday revealed clearer guidelines for the use of deadly drone strikes, including more control by the U.S. military, while leaving key details of the controversial program secret.

All that is left of Shayne Patterson's three-bedroom home is the tiny area where his wife hunkered down under a mattress to protect their three children when a tornado packing winds of at least 200 mph slammed... Students from a suburban Oklahoma City elementary school destroyed by this week's tornado reunited with their teachers Thursday and ... (more)

President Obama on Thursday unveiled a major pivot in White House counterterrorism policy, calling for a limiting of CIA drones strikes and for a renewed effort to close the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In this July 16, 2009 file photo, reviewed by the U.S. military, flags hang above the sign marking the Camp Justice compound, the site of the U.S. war crimes tribunal, at Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base, Cuba.

President Obama's counterterrorism speech was interrupted by a heckler, identified by reporters at the speech as Code Pink's Medea Benjamin, who expressed her outrage about the Administration's use of drones and the detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

Guantanamo Bay's detention facility opened in 2002 with 700 detainees. More than a decade later, 166 remain and more than half are in political limbo, waiting for the Obama administration and Congress to decide whether to close the prison.

President Barack Obama is giving what the White House bills as a major speech on drone and counterterrorism policy at the National Defense University today.