Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba-? Despite a lot of talk in the media and discussion flying around since the election of our next commander in Chief, President Elect Obama, the commander of the Guantanamo Bay military base does not believe that the detention center and prison will be closing anytime soon.
Rear Admiral David Thomas is the commanding officer of Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, and while he does expect there to be ?a rigorous debate,? in the United States about the issue, there is just a lot of problems with the idea of closing the base abruptly, putting the current 250 detainees out there as a security concern.
?The important part, and the hard part is where will we put the detainees and what is the legal process that we use from this point on??? said Rear Admiral Thomas.
Rear Admiral Thomas has been in command now for the last six months as part of the overall Task Force that runs the prison and detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay. No matter what the desires are of the new transition team for Obama are, no one from the transition team has visited Guantanamo Bay up till now, and at this point no one is scheduled to visit in the future.
?When I am ordered to close the facility I will close it,? said Rear Admiral Thomas. ?But I don?t expect that to happen in the very near future,? said Thomas.