|
 Lawyers for the detainee, Tariq Ba Odah, say the way the
department decides will be the clearest indication yet of how
serious Obama is about closing the detention center before he leaves
office in January 2017.
They accuse the president of being unwilling to use all his
executive powers to empty the camp and are skeptical of his
commitment.
"There is this profound dissonance between what the administration
is saying about its desire to close Guantanamo and what is it
actually doing," said Omar Farah, the detainee's lawyer. "And it's
the administration's actions that actually count."
The 36-year-old Yemeni detainee has been force-fed by nasal tube
since he stopped eating solid food in 2007. His weight loss over the
last 18 months has raised fears among his lawyers that he could die
of starvation. Pentagon officials said he is receiving proper care.
U.S. intelligence and military officials cleared him for release
five years ago from the Guantanamo detention center, where 116 men
are imprisoned on a U.S. Navy base 14 years after the Sept. 11, 2001
attacks.
Officials from the Defense Department, which administers the center,
are calling on government lawyers to oppose a habeas corpus petition
Ba Odah's lawyers filed in June requesting his release on health
grounds.
 Pentagon officials say transferring him could create an incentive
for future hunger strikes, according to senior U.S. officials. The
State Department supports his release.
Lawyers for Ba Odah, who was captured by the Pakistani Army along
the Afghan border and was accused of receiving weapons training in
order to fight with the Taliban, say Obama could instruct government
lawyers not to oppose the habeas petition on Friday. There are as
many as a half dozen other habeas petitions that the government
could choose not to contest, they said.
In December 2013, the Justice Department stood on the sidelines when
a habeas corpus petition for an ill Sudanese prisoner at Guantanamo
was filed, clearing the way for a judge to order his release.
Friday's court filing is expected to show whether the White House,
which has promised to send Congress a plan shortly to close the
internationally condemned facility completely, will side with the
Pentagon or the State Department in the dispute.
OBAMA AND EXECUTIVE POWERS
Lawyers for detainees and legal experts say the case is one of
several examples of the president not using executive powers that
could speed the transfer of 52 men cleared for release. U.S.
government officials said last week that a dozen foreign countries
have agreed to accept nearly half of the men.
"I think the president is not doing anywhere near what he could be
doing at this point," said David Glazier, a professor at Loyola Law
School in Los Angeles who follows Guantanamo cases.
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A senior administration official dismissed the criticism saying the
president's "entire national security team is working together to
fulfill the president's steadfast commitment to closing the
Guantanamo detention facility."
The Ba Odah case shows how the president could reduce the ranks of
detainees through court-ordered releases, according to lawyers for
detainees. Such releases avoid a Congressionally-mandated
requirement that the Secretary of Defense personally sign a waiver
approving each transfer.
The signed waiver requirement, and intense opposition to releases
from top military commanders, resulted in successive defense
secretaries being slow to transfer detainees cleared for release.
Lawyers for detainees accused the administration of hypocrisy when
government lawyers recently argued that the U.S. war in Afghanistan
justified holding another Guantanamo detainee cleared for release.
President Obama, they pointed out, has repeatedly declared that the
U.S. war in Afghanistan is over.
Legal experts say the president could order a Periodic Review Board
to determine more quickly whether a detainee's release poses a risk.
Since Obama created the board four years ago, it has reviewed the
cases of only 19 prisoners. Another 50 detainees await being vetted
under the process.
Glazier said reviews have actually slowed since former President
George W. Bush's second term, when they were often conducted
annually.
Joseph Margulies, a Cornell University law professor who also
represents a detainee, said he believed the administration’s actions
reflect a decision by Obama that closing Guantanamo is not as
important as other goals.
"I just think he is not willing to expend political capital to do
it," he said. "It's not nearly as important to him as the Iran
deal."
(Story refiles to correct spelling of "president's" in paragraph 14)
(Reporting by David Rohde; Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick
and Julia Edwards; Editing by David Storey and Alan Crosby)
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