Gitmo Closure Deadline Passes With No Updates

Obama's First Post-Election Promise Officially Broken

by Jason Ditz, January 21, 2010

One of President Barack Obama’s first moves when taking office last year was to pledge to the American public that the detention center at Guantanamo Bay would be closed within one year’s time.

President Obama insisted, and on the rare occasions he brings it up still appears to maintain that the facility is harming America’s image on the international stage. Today that one year deadline came and went, and if you weren’t paying close attention you might have missed it.

In November President Obama finally admitted that the deadline was not going to be met, and he still has offered no firm commitment for a future deadline. Last month however administration officials speculated that the facility couldn’t be closed until late 2011 at the very earliest.

Yet even this speculative date seems to be falling by the wayside, as the president has stopped all transfers of detainees to Yemen, which will place nearly half of the detainees back into a state of legal limbo.

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