Pentagon blocking Guantánamo deals to return Shaker Aamer and other cleared detainees

Exclusive: Pentagon chief and top officials playing ‘foot-dragging games’ despite 2013 agreement with UK diplomats and Obama’s promise to close facility





The Pentagon is blocking the return of UK permanent resident Shaker Aamer and two other longtime Guantánamo Bay detainees for whom the US Department of State has completed diplomatic deals to transfer home, the Guardian has
learned.

American and UK diplomats reached an agreement in late 2013 for the return of Aamer, who has spent more than 13 years at the infamous detention facility without charge, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the understanding.
But even as the White House pledged to make his case a priority after a personal plea from David Cameron, Barack Obama’s defense secretaries have played what one official called “foot-dragging and process games” to let the deals languish.
Pentagon chief Ashton Carter, backed by powerful US military officers, has withheld support for sending Aamer back to the UK. The ongoing obstruction has left current and former US officials who consider the detainees a minimal threat seething, as they see it undermining relations with Britain and other foreign partners while subverting from the inside Obama’s long-stifled goal of closing the infamous detention facility.
Some consider the White House indecisive on Guantánamo issues, effectively enabling Pentagon intransigence ahead of the release of a long-awaited strategy for closing the facility before Obama’s presidency ends.
Two of the men being kept at Guantánamo were cleared by a 2010 government review, in which the Pentagon participated, that found them to pose little threat to US or allied national security. Aamer is among them.
Administration officials said the Pentagon has never formally opposed the transfers, an act of outright resistance to a high-profile presidential commitment that risks reprisal. The transfers have the backing of the US Justice Department, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
But since White House rules depend on full administration consensus, Aamer remains at Guantánamo until Carter and the Pentagon say otherwise.
By law, the US defense secretary must sign off on the transfers, which occur 30 days after the Pentagon chief’s signature. Chuck Hagel’s reluctance to closing Guantánamo contributed to his firing last year, but successor Carter has not proven any more pliable.
“Carter is worse,” said one official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a topic of significant internal acrimony within the Obama administration.
The Pentagon opposition helps explain why Aamer has remained at Guantánamo despite bipartisan anger from the United States’ closest international ally. “A slap in the face is right,” one frustrated official said, agreeing with the characterization in a recent article by Labour MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Andy Slaughter along with conservative MPs David Davis and Andrew Mitchell.
US officials said they reached a deal with their British counterparts on transferring Aamer at a meeting in Washington in October 2013, subject to final approval from senior officials. The Pentagon has been the holdout.

Abdul Shalabi, left, and Ahmed Ould Abdel Aziz. Photograph: Internet

The other two detainees are the Mauritanian Ahmed Ould Abdel Aziz and the Saudi Abdul Shalabi. The state department has deals in place with the three detainees’ home countries that still await Carter’s signature. US diplomats reached an agreement to transfer Abdel Aziz in fall 2013; Shalabi was cleared on 15 June by a quasi-parole hearing called a Periodic Review Board.