welcome to "inside story". i'm ray suarez. it may be fair to say no one, neither the people who want to close the military detention center at guantanamo bay, or the people that keep it open, are happy with the way things have gone since the place was open 13 years ago. the military tribunals have been carried out, and many of the detainees were found not to have important roles with al qaeda or the taliban. many were detained in error and cleared to go home. but couldn't because the home countries didn't want them. seven years after president obama promised to close the place down, it's open. and a thorn in the administration's side. >> jamie mcintyre has more. >> last week the pentagon visited the system. this week they are visiting the naval shipyard. they are looking to gather information about what it would take to pull prisoners to guantanamo. one of the options under consideration is supposed to go into a proposal to head up to congress. like most things involving guantanamo, it turned out to be a little more complicated than that. they promised offering a plan to congress. it would spell out how guantanamo bay would shut down. how the congress could lift restrictions. one idea is allegedly dangerous detainees. they could not be released. a federal prison in illinois, that has some 1500 cells. as reported by "the washington post". former attorney-general promised the committee: it's back to the drawing board. >> we obviously strongly support the secretary, strongly support president obama's determine nation, made from his first day of administration to close guantanamo. it's obviously a top priority. it has remained a challenge throughout. the administration hoped to get plans for senate armed services this month. before congress recess. officials say it will be next month at the earliest before a proposal goes to the hill. they hoped to work with president obama to close guantanamo, but only if they provide an alternative. it's not just a ban. it's a require that the defense secretary sign off on transfers to other countries, certifying that the resettled chinese no longer pose a risk to the u.s. it was a source of attention between defense secretary chuck hagel and the white house last year. hagel was reluctant to give personal assurance if something was unknowable. defense secretary ash carter is taking a conservative approach. years after president barack obama signed an executive order to close guantanamo within a year, a number of detainees has been cut from 240 to 116, and half have been cleared for release. most not facing charges. >> the pentagon says because they sent teams to looks at fort levon worth, and the naval brig. doesn't mean that's where the prisoners would go. one of things they are doing is figure out how much it costs to retrofit a prison. they need places for military commissions to take place for the support staff, and also looking at federal prisons that are not in the military. any time they identify a location is immediately a position to bring prisoners to the united states that's jamie mcintyre. to look at guantanamo we are joined by jonathan hanson, author of "guantanamo, an american history", and senior lecturer at harvard university. the united states operates military facilities across the globe, including in many places of ambiguous standing. as many places in the western pacific that are american territory or not quite. guantanamo. >> that's a good question. i want to clarify the places in the pacific are under joourz dictional constitution. guantanamo, since the beginning of the u.s. lease gave us guantanamo bay, dating from 1903. the reason is that cuba retained sovereignty at guantanamo. the u.s. was given control and jurisdiction there, and that m big uty led to the -- ambiguity led to app development of a place beyond the reach of u.s. constitutional law, cuban law and international la starting in the 1970s, and again in the 1990s, different administrations began to use guantanamo bay to detain refugees in haiti and cuba, because of the loophole. theoretically nobody had legal jurisdiction there. >> i want to push on that point a little bit hard. you visit american military facilities that are on foreign soil. the air force base in italy. okinawa on japanese soil. when you are on the base itself, there? >> that's right. the supreme court cases confirm that. the important front, zerm ni - that has not been the case at guantanamo bay, historically for the reasons that i suggest, because of its ambiguous stats. if we were to end up in another conflict, unforeseen, could we see guantanamo used in this way again, because of the limbo status that occupies american law? as pointed out in 2005/2006, the way the bush buildings used guantanamo bay despite the objections of people like mc-avery. have meant that now guantanamo received judicial scrutiny and there's been cases that have confirmed u.s. constitutional jurisdiction at guantanamo bay for the first time. the use of guantanamo is a platform beyond the reach of u.s. law, is no longer available. so the lesson that i take from a long history of guantanamo bay, it's impossible to anticipate the uses in the future. no one could imagine what is going on there now or the uses in the 90, holding up to 85,000 cuban refugees beyond constitutional protection. but the supreme court cases, they have changed that, so there's a moto come of constitutional projections at guantanamo now. >> when we look at the scaffolding created by president cases have the united states created a new series, a new set of theories about the whole prisoners. in what is a new kind of war. >> i'm not a legal scholar. a historian. i don't know the details of the legality precedence and what they mean for the future. it seems clear that what has gone on there doesn't work right. the military tribunal after military tribunal has been brought to a halt. it hardly seems to me that they have hit on a method of holding detainees from future wars. like the last one. where they are detained from the war on terror. i don't see a good precedent has been set. evidence of that is here in the topic of your show, the administration is flying like crazy, harder than ever to bring that to a close. >> jonathan hanson, thank you so much. a senior lecturer at harvard and author of guantanamo and american history, straight ahead - can president obama shut guantanamo without congressional cooperation, and are there some detainees they'll insist on holding for a long time, trials tore no trials. closing guantanamo, it's "inside story". >> katrina was really a wake-up call. >> one of the worst catastrophes in u.s. history. >> most of south louisiana is all sediment, plant growth and decay... there's always a risk of flooding. >> now, new cutting edge technology that could help prevent future disasters... >> the system has really evolved. >> and what it means for new orleans. >> our big take away is new orleans is on a good track, but the job is not done here. >> techknow investigates 10 years after katrina. i'll ray suarez, and this is "inside story". on the programme - closing guantanamo bay. half the prisoners, military detention center are cleared for transfer. at the moment they have no place to go. president obama wants to close the place down. now, congress is drafting laws that make it impossible to send detainees to the american mainland as the department of defense teams assess two other areas as detainment centers. >> retired colonel joins us, serving as secretary of state colin powell's secretary of staff. with me in studio. courtenay sullivan, a counterterrorism prosecutor for the department of justice, and a former prosecutor for litigation for the office of military commissions. welcome back to the programme. what are the problems from the beginning in the design of guantanamo and the manner which we view these prisoners from today on out. >> i think the threshold matter, there was no design. you know, when it hoped in 2001, it was a place where the previous administration was housing battlefield. it was long before the high valuer detainees, those responsible for the 9/11 attacks, the u.s.s. coal attacks. before they were contemplated to go there. i think the flaws are the lack of success, were based on a lack of planning from the outside. i don't want to sound judgmental, because it's not. we were in unprecedented territory, but were we kind of making this up as we went along, because we have. >> i think it's right. it's a legal basis for having a time. this is an unconventional war. immediately following in the 1997 attacks. that was the basis for continuing to use force in afghanistan and iraq for many years, and from the outset, it was a war many respect, and under the law, the u.s. military was properly capturing detainees or prisoners of war. there has been a fluid definition as to what that means between administrations, but essentially, regardless of semantics of that, there had to be some plates to -- some place to take the prisoners. there was talk about an air base. it was not the only choice, but a choice that was made. >> colonel, you were one of the people in the room. were there differences of opinion as the policies were being drafted, about how to handle this, and whether this was going to work long term? >> i'll go back to mr hanson's dependents, and say most of those comments i agree with. we were looking at a number of voices around the world. guantanamo was one that loomed larger as we thought about its unique extra territoriality as to say no one owned it. we were there, we thought we could avoid u.s. law and international law, and keep it there. i must say that the motivation of most c.i.a. and the defense department intelligence folks was that they could do what they needed to do there by way of interrogation, which other places, other than the secret prison set up, they may not be able to do. it's a new intent, because these weren't refugees. looking for political asylum, needing adjudication in a place where they'd be kept for a time until it was accomplished. these were prisoners, and they were interrogated by various means, many were innocent, they were not captured by u.s. soldiers, but by pakistanis, afghans and others that turned them over to u.s. soldiers, that didn't have the time or numbers on the battlefields to shift them away. they were able to do so and rub their hands. >> it was a unique situation, one never encountered by the government. and my buildings handled it well. and it came on badly. >> was the fact that to a degree guantanamo was opaque, unable to be seen by the american public, and unable to have any regular order forced on it, part of the problem over time? i think it was, when you say opaque, what you mean there are other aspects to it, the media couldn't get in there or the international red cross couldn't get in there or others, given the rule of law. media was a problem we got rid of. we didn't have a problem, there was no potential, we thought at the time, an abu ghraib, where the media could ferry it around, find things. guantanamo was hard to get into. if you did get into it, you would be subject to the security mechanisms pretty rapidly. that was a consideration, and it's a consideration now. had i been the president, i would so said okay, i'm bringing these people who are most dangerous to maximum security prison, and congress impeach me. this is ridiculous, i'm letting the ones i judged no harm go, and bringing those i judged unreleasable, because they might bring harm, i'm bringing the maximum security prisons. that's the end of it, we procraftinated, we let the congress take the blame, and the wows, and the congress, this is what we do in washington. we push between the different aspects of the branches and blame and blame and blame. and nothing gets done. >> i'll get your reaction after the break. when we come back, a lot of attention to detainees who did stretches at guantanamo bay, even though it was determined they didn't commit war-time crimes or take up arms against the u.s. should the u.s. hold them forever because of fears they may plot terror attacks. ror attacks. . >> this man has been a prisoner since 2001, and petitioned a federal judge for a release with a plea - the war is over. he used president obama's own statement. the federal judge replied that statement, like the president, doesn't determine whether hostilities ceased, but a time history when they no longer declare war, lawrence and courtney are with us. before the break you heard colonel wilkinson talk about the capacity by design, the international red cross was not in there. investors were not looking at how detainees were not held. was that part of the problem. >> i agree with everything the colonel said. at the onset of the opening, i don't know that the agents behind that, across the government were as transparent as the colonel is about the reasoning for opening it. the primary motivator was beyond the reach of the constitution, theoretically. i think that construct, as your earlier guest said, is, at a minimum waning. so what do we do now. about half of the 116 people are judged too dangerous to let go. can we contemplate holding them in perp pet uty without trial and charge? >> there are a couple of problems with that. one of which is the supreme court's indyk tore, having to do with habeas corporate rights. that suggested that the longer they are detained. the further they are away from the battlefield hostilities. the less legally sound the position is, that we are allowed to without releasing them. because the legal theory behind that starts to collapse after a period of time. particularly we no longer have boots on the ground in afghanistan and are operating under a forces agreement where afghanistan has the sovereign check. >> at the same time some of the people we release have, in fact, come back to war against us. >> i have heard the stories and sign evidence of one or two that i would believe. and i would say that would probably be exotinge sis of war, any war. clandestine, whatever. you have people escape from prisons, for example, as you know and they'll become your enemies again. that is something that is it going to happen, it's a price you pay for going to war. we have to make a choice about dangerous. if we really think that they are that dangerous, we have two choices. we can let them go anyway and bring them to maximum security prisons, make up a statutory relation in the congress, and i guarantee you we have no problem with that, and keep them forever until they die. let's put this in perspective. there's 30,000 members of d.a.e.s.h., i.s.i.s., i.s.i.l. there's a lot of al nusra front people. there are al qaeda, and others out there, that love to kill americans. we are going to add 50 - let's put it in perspective for a month. what is the degree of danger for these people. and what is the degree of reputational and legal damage over the long haul for continuing to hold them outside the law. >> that is a question. territory. >> i agree whether it was c.i.a. or the department of defense, that wholistically as a government. we have lionized these people. somehow bringing them to people on soil creates a greater threat. when they have devoted al qaeda, who attacked the united states. >> thanks to my guest. courtney sullivan, and retired colonel lawrence wilkinson. i'll be back with a fanfare on the difficulties that follow making rules on the fly. you're watching hing "inside story". as we heard, there was a lot of decision making in the days after the 9/11 attacks. that was very much of the moment, and was clearly not consistent with august of 2015. yet here we are. for all hollering on capitol hill over the triumph of al qaeda. the trials we held here have gone, with evidence and testimony of verdicts rendered. richard reed. john walker, were all tried on american soil. the people that set i'm the prison on the old naval base didn't think it was a permanent facility, but the war stretched on and on, as did the explanations we had to give ourselves and the world about the united states and what they were doing there. the further this country headed down the road, the harder to extricate ourselves from the consequence of holding men in indefinite consensus, holding people by telling american people that detainees were the worst of the worst, after we knew that was not the case. the politician around all of this is too hot for a dried-eyed era. that will have to wait for another day. i'm ray suarez. that's "inside story". >> on al jazeera america, >> a team of scientists are taking their inspiration from nature. >> technology...it's a vital part of who we are >>they had some dynamic fire behavior... >> and what we do.... >> transcranial direct stimulation... don't try this at home! >> tech know's team of experts show you how the miracles of science... >> this is my selfie... what can you tell me about my future? >> ...can effect and surprise us... >> sharks like affection >> tech know, where technology meets humanity... only on al jazeera america >> >> [ ♪ ] >> you know people were dropping like flies. all of those lying closer to the plant. >> we are not seeing one thing off. >> we are paying with our lives. >> lots of men, lots of money, trafficking. >> you cannot promote a technology producing the most toxic substance on earth, and

Related Keywords

Haiti , United States , Louisiana , Japan , New Orleans , Iraq , Afghanistan , China , Illinois , Cuba , Capitol Hill , District Of Columbia , Washington , Italy , Pakistan , Americans , Chinese , Pakistanis , Japanese , American , Afghans , Cuban , Chuck Hagel , Al Nusra , Barack Obama , Al Jazeera America , Jonathan Hanson , Courtenay Sullivan , Al Qaeda , Colin Powell , Jamie Mcintyre , Courtney Sullivan , Lawrence Wilkinson , Ray Suarez , John Walker , Richard Reed , Abu Ghraib ,