(EFE).- The President of the United States, Joe Biden, announced this Friday the defense budget approved by Congress for the fiscal year 2024, but criticized the provisions that prevent him from closing the Guantánamo prison and transferring its inmates.
The president reported in a statement that he signed the bill with the new budget because it would allow the Pentagon to have an army capable of “deterring future conflicts.”
However, Biden criticized the fact that the text “continues to prohibit the use of funds for the transfer of detainees from Guantánamo Bay” to the USA or other countries.
The president stressed that these provisions “unduly undermine” the government's ability to determine when and where detainees at Guantánamo are processed and where they should be sent upon their release.
Biden even noted that it could prevent compliance with a court ruling that ordered the release of one of the detainees through a writ of habeas corpus.
The president stressed that these provisions “unreasonably undermine” the government’s ability to determine when and where detainees at Guantánamo are processed.
“I call on Congress to lift these restrictions as quickly as possible,” Biden said.
Located on a US naval base in eastern Cuba, the Guantánamo Bay detention center was opened in 2002 on the orders of then President of the United States George W. Bush (2001-2009) in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Guantanamo, the destination of nearly 800 terrorists imprisoned in Afghanistan and Iraq, was targeted by the hurricane because of what it attributed to secret detentions and torture, which reportedly included simulated drowning and techniques to prevent detainees from sleeping. Today there are fewer than 40 prisoners.
The defense budget for fiscal year 2024 is $886 billion, 3% more than that for 2023, which was estimated at $858 billion.
The new package includes a pay increase for the military and includes items to deter China in the Indo-Pacific and support Ukraine in the war with Russia.
However, most of the military support for Kyiv is still pending approval of a special national security grant that President Joe Biden sent to Congress, but Republicans are blocking it.
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