Guantanamo Bay

Karen J. Greenberg, the author of "The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo's First 100 Days," is the director of Fordham University's Center on National Security. Renewing his push to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, President Obama this past week said what many of his critics have been saying for years — that it is "inefficient," inspires new terrorists, alienates our allies and, above all, "is contrary to who we are. " Coming in response to the detainee hunger strikers , whose numbers increase every day, Obama's...

President Obama will deliver a speech Thursday at the National Defense University in which he will address how he intends to bring his counterterrorism policies, including the drone program and the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in line with the legal framework he promised after taking office. A White House official, speaking Saturday on the condition of anonymity to describe the speech in advance, said Obama will "discuss our broad counterterrorism policy, including our military, diplomatic, intelligence and legal...

The sputtering end of the Obama administration's plans to prosecute Khalid Sheik Mohammed in federal court came one day late last month in a conversation between the president and one of his top Cabinet members. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. had called President Obama to inform him that he would be returning the case to the Defense Department , a decision that would mark the effective abandonment of the president's promise to close the military detention center at Guantanamo...

MIAMI — A lawyer for a Guantanamo Bay prisoner is calling on the U.S. Justice Department to release photos of wounds the man suffered when struck with non-lethal rounds at a recent clash with guards at the prison. Attorney Ramzi Kassem's letter to a Justice Department official, which was released on Friday, also calls for a review of the April 13 incident, describing the wounds suffered by his client as more serious than portrayed by the U.S. military. Moath al-Alwi, a prisoner from Yemen, was...

WASHINGTON — A Guantanamo Bay detainee says he feels abandoned by President Barack Obama and the world after more than 10 years at the U.S. prison. "I believe that President Obama must be unaware of the unbelievably inhumane conditions at the Guantanamo Bay prison, for otherwise he would surely do something to stop this torture," Yemeni prisoner Musa'ab Omar Al Madhwani wrote in a federal court declaration this year. About a month later, Obama renewed his vow to close the U.S....

Twice a day at the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, guards take a group of detainees from their cells, one at a time, to a camp clinic or a private room on their block. The detainees are offered a hot meal or a liquid nutritional supplement, and, if they refuse, they are strapped into a chair. A nurse then passes a tube through their noses and down into their stomachs; for one to two hours, they are fed a drip of Ensure while a Navy corpsman watches. Those who have...

"Guantanamo Bay: Photographs by Christopher Sims" opens tonight at Civilian Art Projects, 406 Seventh St. NW, Wednesday-Saturday noon-6 p.m., 202-347-0022, to March 14; http://www.civilianartprojects.com .

President Obama said Tuesday that he will revive his push to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a first-term campaign promise that a Democratic-led Congress rejected as impractical and potentially unsafe. With a majority of Guantanamo's 166 detainees on a mass hunger strike , Obama said at a White House news conference that the existence of the facility damages the country's image abroad, costs too much money and undermines U.S. counterterrorism efforts by serving as a recruiting tool for...

A hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has spread over the past two weeks , with the U.S. military saying the number of detainees participating in the protest has more than doubled and attorneys for the men insisting that the number is far higher. The Pentagon said Monday that 39 men are consistently refusing food. Of those, 11 are being force fed — a process that can involve strapping the detainee down and passing a liquid nutritional supplement through a tube that is run from the nose into...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's March 15 op-ed about the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay [" Don't Close It "] recycled all of the shibboleths about the "worst of the worst" that the Bush administration and its apologists have used to justify the prison's existence. But when judges have looked at evidence, a very different picture has emerged. Of the 27 prisoners whose cases have been heard to date by the federal courts, only four have been found to be enemy combatants -- one of whom was found...

MIAMI — A U.S. military spokesman says medics at the Guantanamo Bay prison were called to a cell amid a long-running hunger strike at the U.S. base in Cuba. Navy Capt. Robert Durand says the prisoner had been reported "unresponsive" while being checked by guards inside the section of the prison known as Camp 5. Durand says the prisoner was examined, determined to be OK and returned to his cell. His identity was not disclosed. The so-called "code yellow" occurred Tuesday as 100...

WASHINGTON — A Guantanamo Bay detainee says he feels abandoned by President Barack Obama and the world after more than 10 years at the U.S. prison. "I believe that President Obama must be unaware of the unbelievably inhumane conditions at the Guantanamo Bay prison, for otherwise he would surely do something to stop this torture," Yemeni prisoner Musa'ab Omar Al Madhwani wrote in a federal court declaration this year. About a month later, Obama renewed his vow...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The widow of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev has hired a prominent criminal lawyer with experience defending terrorism cases as she continues to face questions from federal authorities. Katherine Russell added New York lawyer Joshua Dratel to her legal team, her attorney Amato DeLuca said Wednesday. Dratel has represented a number of terrorism suspects in federal courts and military commissions, including Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,...

Karen J. Greenberg, the author of "The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo's First 100 Days," is the director of Fordham University's Center on National Security. Renewing his push to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, President Obama this past week said what many of his critics have been saying for years — that it is "inefficient," inspires new terrorists, alienates our allies and, above all, "is contrary to who we are. " Coming in response to the detainee hunger strikers , whose numbers increase every...

The May 1 editorial " Guantanamo, again ," on President Obama's promise to re-engage Congress regarding the Guantanamo Bay prison, correctly pointed out that he has failed to certify any transfers of terrorist detainees to other countries. In part, this is because his administration agrees that many of the detainees at Guantanamo are simply too dangerous to transfer or release. For other detainees, the House Armed Services Committee has worked closely with the Senate to ensure that the certification...

Twice a day at the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, guards take a group of detainees from their cells, one at a time, to a camp clinic or a private room on their block. The detainees are offered a hot meal or a liquid nutritional supplement, and, if they refuse, they are strapped into a chair. A nurse then passes a tube through their noses and down into their stomachs; for one to two hours, they are fed a drip of Ensure while a Navy corpsman watches. Those who have experienced force-feeding...

The Justice Department on Friday for the first time disclosed the names of detainees at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who have been approved for transfer but whose release has been delayed. The 55 detainees were identified in court papers filed in U.S. District Court in Washington . The Justice Department said there was "no longer a need to withhold" the information from the public. "Today's release is a partial victory for transparency, and it should also be a spur to action.

GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA It is the oddest of unintended airport stopovers -- a short stay at Guantanamo Bay . Helicopter flights for the ship I was trying to reach off the coast of Haiti had been canceled. So I slept in an Air Force tent at Camp Freedom, an arrow's shot from where Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed is imprisoned -- his stay now extended longer than the Obama administration would wish. "Guantanamo" has become a synonym for "prison. " Actually, it is a 45-square-mile U.S. Navy base, complete with a...

PRESIDENT OBAMA was eloquent Tuesday in describing why the situation at the Guantanamo Bay prison is "unsustainable. " He was justified in blaming Congress for frustrating his effort to close the facility . But he was disingenuous in failing to acknowledge that his own actions — or his own inaction — have substantially contributed to an impasse that has prompted more than half of Guantanamo's inmates to undertake a hunger strike. One hundred and sixty-six terrorism suspects remain at Guantanamo , of whom...