WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's chief of staff and two leading US senators said on Friday they were determined to come up with a plan to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which would fulfill Obama's five-year-old campaign promise. “We continue to believe that it is in our national interest to end detention at Guantanamo with a safe and orderly transition of the detainees to other locations,” White House chief of staff Denis McDonough, Senator Dianne Feinstein and Senator John McCain said in a joint statement. “We intend to work, with a plan by Congress and the administration together, to take the steps necessary to make that happen,” the group said after a tour of facility, which the United States has used to hold enemy combatants and terrorism suspects since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The tour included the maximum-security Camp 7, which holds about 15 “high-value captives” sent to Guantanamo in 2006 from former CIA prisons overseas, a source familiar with the trip said. The Pentagon has asked Congress for money to replace the building. Feinstein, a Democrat who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, and McCain, a top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee who lost the 2008 election to Obama, have long argued that the prison should be closed. Detainees have complained of abuse and torture — Washington has denied the accusations — and rights activists and international observers have criticized the US government's use of the prison. But other US lawmakers have blocked the move, arguing that the administration has not offered satisfactory alternatives on what to do with the detainees. In their joint statement, McDonough, McCain and Feinstein said the prisoners were being held “in a safe and respectful way.” Obama last month pledged to lift a ban imposed on transfers of detainees to Yemen from the prison, one of the core obstacles to clearing out the detention camp. Of the 86 detainees who have been cleared for transfer or release, 56 are from Yemen, where Al-Qaeda has a dangerous presence. An unknown number of the 80 other prisoners at the camp who are not cleared are Yemeni as well. Visiting officials typically start with a briefing by base commander Rear Admiral John Smith, followed by a tour of the primary detention facilities, Camp 5 and Camp 6, where the majority of the detainees live. They also are shown prisoner health facilities, including the hospital and behavioral health unit, and support facilities such as the barracks where troops live and the kitchen where meals are prepared for both the prisoners and US soldiers. One of the final stops is the naval base's legal complex, including the courtroom where the military tribunals are held. — AP
