House Dems refuse funds to close Gitmo

House Democrats on Monday refused a request by the Obama administration for $50 million to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay and relocate inmates amid speculation that some of its prisoners may be eventually housed in the United States.
“When lawmakers unveiled a bill to pay for military and diplomatic efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan through the fall, the money to implement President Barack Obama’s executive order to shut down the prison within a year was missing from it,” reported the Associated Press. “However, money could be transferred later — without a politically challenging vote — if it were needed to move the detainees.”
Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee will seek for the next few weeks to pass $94.2 billion in emergency funds, topping President Obama’s request by some $11 billion.
“[Congressman David] Obey [D-WI] said he was ‘very dubious’ about positive outcomes in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He said he felt the same way about Vietnam when he came into the House in 1969. But he gave Nixon a year, since he had inherited that war,” reported NBC.
“‘If I could give Richard Nixon a year,’ Obey said, ‘I don’t see why I can’t give Barack Obama a year to see what he can do.’ But he reiterated, ‘I have very little faith in anybody to solve the situation in Pakistan. … The problem is Pakistan. It’s a political system of dealmakers,’ who don’t honor deals.”
“I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantanamo, and I will follow through on that,” President Obama said in his first post-election interview. LinkHere