Washington: Stating that the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention centre is one of the biggest recruitment propaganda tools for extremist organisations world over, US President Barack Obama today reiterated his commitment to close Gitmo at the earliest.
"There's been no bigger propaganda weapon for many of these extremists than pointing to Guantanamo and saying that we don't live up to our own ideals.
That's something that I strongly believe we have to resist, even if it has some costs to it, and even if it's not always the most politically popular thing to do," Obama told
YouTube in an interview.
Soon after becoming President, Obama had announced to close Guantanamo in one year, but he has not been able to meet the deadline.
Explaining the reason for this, he said: "Number one, you've got a whole bunch of individuals in Guantanamo, some of whom are very dangerous, some of whom were low-level fighters, some of whom the courts have determined should never have been put there in the first place."
The Administration, he said, had to evaluate each of the hundreds of cases, one by one, to determine what these various categories are, and do it in a way that stands up to
US standards of due process and legal scrutiny.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, February 02, 2010, 11:52