Obama’s latest attempt to close Gitmo revives difficult political fight

WASHINGTON — At the beginning of his first term, President Barack Obama, surrounded by former generals and admirals, announced his intention to close the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay with all the fanfare and sense of possibility accorded a new, determined occupant of the Oval Office.

Over the next 15 months or so, officials in his administration from multiple agencies met and met, and talked and talked, until they seemed immobilized by indecision and cowed by Congress. And the ambitious plan, like water circling a drain, vanished.

By returning to the intractable and charged issue of closing the detention facility in Cuba, Obama has regenerated a political battle that could prove as demanding as gun control, immigration or health-care reform — and as defining for his legacy.

In a speech at the National Defense University on Thursday, Obama recommitted himself to shuttering the facility and announced a series of steps to kick-start that process.

“He should get credit for an important speech,” Harold Koh, former legal adviser at the State Department and an advocate of closing Guantanamo, said in an interview. “But now the time for talking is over and the administration needs to act and act quickly if they want to be taken seriously. This is the president’s last, best chance.”

The detention of 166 men at the facility drew the president’s fresh attention in part because of a mass hunger strike there. On Friday, 103 detainees were fasting and 32 were being force-fed twice a day, according to a spokesman for Joint Task Force Guantanamo.

Among the current population at Guantanamo, 86 detainees have been cleared for transfer home or resettlement in a third country, according to U.S. officials.