Under a defense policy bill passed by the Senate, lawmakers would consider the White House plan and decide whether to ease restrictions that make it harder for Obama to transfer detainees out of the prison at the U.S. naval base in an effort to close it.
The House version of the legislation doesn’t contain that provision, however, and it may not survive when lawmakers finish negotiating a compromise version of the entire bill.
The White House has threatened a veto of the defense bill over several issues, including if it makes it harder to close the Guantanamo Bay prison. Congress has repeatedly stymied the president’s plans to close the prison in the past, however, and Obama has backed down from similar veto threats.
Earnest said the administration was in the “final stages” of drafting the plan for Congress. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, proposed creating this new path toward the possibility of closing the Guantanamo Bay facility.
But there’s opposition among many Republicans and Democrats, too. Lawmakers fear that detainees from the war on terror sent home to the Middle East will return to the battlefield. They also object to moving them into U.S. prisons.
House Speaker John Boehner’s office said in a statement that bipartisan majorities in Congress oppose “closing Guantanamo Bay and bringing dangerous terrorists to U.S. soil.”
“Given the serious threats America faces, it’s incredible to see this administration threatening to veto a bill that gives our troops a pay raise, strengthens our cybersecurity and imposes greater restrictions on releasing terrorists,” Boehner spokesman Cory Fritz said.
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