President Obama makes powerful appeal to close Guantanamo Bay

The president is sending his plan to Congress - but he faces an uphill battle

(AP)

President Barack Obama on Tuesday urged Congress to give his plan to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay a “fair hearing” and said he did not want to pass the issue on to the person who succeeds him in the White House. He said the camp undermined America's standing in the world and did nothing to enhance national security.

However, the proposal - technically a report from the Pentagon - which argues for the transfer of the remaining suspects at the base either to other countries or to a purpose-built facility on US soil, is almost certain to be cold-shouldered by Republicans in Congress who have consistently opposed the facility’s closure.

“I am very clear-eyed about the hurdles to finally closing Guantanamo, the politics of this are tough,” Mr Obama said, outlining the proposal at the White House. “If it were easy, it would have happened years ago.”

Protesters line up outside the White House calling for the closing of Guantanamo Bay. (Mandel Ngan/AP)

Closing Guantanamo Bay was one of Mr Obama’s campaign promises when he was first elected.

The document sent to Congress today does not answer one of the most sensitive questions. If there is to be a new facility inside the United States, where would it be? It goes no further than to identify a series of possible options, ranging from already existing military bases for instance in Kansas and South Carolina to current maximum-security federal penitentiaries in Colorado.

While the cost of building an alternative to Guantanamo would run to about $475 million, the report says, the annual running costs savings would be about $180m.

“Not only is this the right thing to do for our security, it will also save money,” Mr Obama said, noting also that the US has already tried and successfully convicted terror suspects inside the normal criminal court system including Robert Reid, the British ‘shoe-bomber’, and the perpetrator of the Boston marathon bombing.