President Obama's Final Push to Close Gitmo

The Brian Lehrer Show | Feb 23, 2016

The president addressed the nation about his long-promised plan to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

“I really think there is an opportunity here for progress. I believe that we have an obligation to try.”

Hear the president's remarks first, followed by analysis from Karen Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University Law School.

Greenberg explained that closing Guantanamo would have major financial - and symbolic - implications. "The cost goes up with every detainee that's released," she said, because the cost of running the facility stays the same despite fewer and fewer individuals being detained there. It costs millions of dollars a year per detainee to keep the facility open at this point.

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