At 23, Guantanamo remains a stain on US history and Biden's legacy

On January 11, 2002, the United States opened the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, ushering in what would become one of the darkest chapters in US history.

Over the past 23 years, Guantanamo has symbolised the abuses of the "War on Terror," especially the lasting stain of indefinite detention, torture, and the denial of basic human rights.

Former President Joe Biden's administration's promise to close the facility offered glimmers of hope, yet its actions over the past four years were marked by delays, contradictions, and missed opportunities.

President Donald Trump now takes office, and Guantanamo remains open.

It's crucial to reflect on where and how the administration fell short—and how some of its actions during Biden's final days in office could make closing Guantanamo even harder in the future.

Broken promises

When Biden assumed office in January 2021, his administration said he would finally follow through on a promise first made by President Barack Obama: to close Guantanamo. By the time Biden took office, only 40 men remained at the prison, down from a peak of nearly 800.

By mid-2023, 10 more detainees had been transferred out. However, this semblance of momentum soon gave way to inertia and for over a year, progress stalled.

It wasn't until after the Democrats' electoral defeat in November 2024 that the administration restarted and accelerated transfers. In the two months following the election, over a dozen detainees were repatriated or resettled in third countries, including individuals who had been cleared for release years earlier but languished in detention.

While these late-term actions were welcomed, they also underscored that by hesitating, the administration had wasted precious time.

Take the case of Iraqi detainee, Nashwan al-Tamir, who is suffering from paralysis and has undergone six surgeries at Guantanamo. He should have been transferred under the terms of his plea agreement from 2022.

The State Department had determined that he could not be repatriated to his own country of Iraq, for fear of suffering serious human rights abuses upon his return, so another country needed to be identified.

After two years of no movement on that front, the Biden administration decided at the last minute to try to send him to Iraq, notwithstanding its previous concerns and potentially in violation of international law.

Al-Tamir has now sued the US and postponed his transfer. He was going to be repatriated to Iraq to serve his sentence; however, he and his lawyers feared for his safety and that he would be kept in inhumane conditions. Under international law, the US government cannot send a person to a country where their human rights would be violated.

Given the Trump administration's plan to keep Guantanamo open, he will likely remain at the prison for the next four years.

Legacy of torture

Closing Guantanamo also requires ending the failed military commission court system that former US President George W Bush's administration established there.

As scores of diverse stakeholders that follow the commissions closely have long made clear, the only way to achieve that goal is through plea agreements in the remaining cases; most importantly, the 9/11 case. The Biden administration failed on that front, too.

The case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and three other alleged co-conspirators has been stuck in pretrial hearings for over a decade, largely due to legal and procedural challenges stemming from their torture in CIA custody.

In 2022, defence teams and prosecutors began negotiating a plea agreement, offering a measure of justice and finality to victims' families while avoiding more endless litigation chasing the mirage of a trial.

After over a year of negotiations, Biden rejected proposed conditions for the plea deal. Nevertheless, discussions between the prosecution and defence continued, and a plea agreement was ultimately reached on July 31, 2024.

But two days later, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin abruptly revoked the agreement without explanation. Subsequent rulings by the Guantanamo military commissions found Austin's action unlawful. Since then, the administration has sought intervention from a federal appeals court to block the plea agreement and uphold Austin's authority.

This obstruction reflects a deeper failure to confront the legacy of torture and the flawed military commission system. By blocking the plea agreement, the administration has undermined its own stated goal of closing the facility. Resolving the 9/11 case is not just a legal imperative; it is a moral and political one.

US hypocrisy continues

The administration's actions further risk eroding the US' commitments to human rights and the rule of law. Guantanamo has long been a source of global criticism, damaging the US's desired role as a 'champion' of justice and human rights.

By failing to close it—and by obstructing pathways to resolution—the Biden administration has reinforced perceptions of US hypocrisy. This has consequences, not only for the US's global standing but also for its ability to advocate for human rights globally.

To be sure, the Biden administration inherited a difficult situation. Closing Guantanamo requires navigating complex legal, political, and logistical challenges. Many of these challenges are due to decisions made by previous administrations.

But the difficulties of the task do not release the current administration of responsibility. If anything, they underscore the need for bold and decisive action—something the Biden administration has been unwilling or unable to deliver.

The administration's actions in its final months suggest that, for a moment, it recognised the urgency of closing Guantanamo.

And those actions showed that whatever legal, political, and logistical challenges needed to be overcome to close Guantanamo, the administration could have done it had it prioritised that work before its final weeks.

In other words, if the administration had truly been committed to ending this chapter in American history, it could and should have taken advantage of the time it had and done so in a way that not only closed the facility but also addressed the harms it continues to cause.

Instead, it betrayed the very same human rights and rule of law principles that Guantanamo's existence has undermined.

It is far from clear that the 15 men who remain, including three who have been cleared for transfer, will ever leave the prison.