Transcript
12:29 David Mark: Good Afternoon. One of the thorniest issues President-elect Obama will face upon taking office will be over closing the Guantanamo Bay detention center and generally dealing with enemy combatants. We look forward to getting Ben Wittes' thoughts on these and other important legal issues confronting the new administration.
12:30 David Mark: Let's open this up with a question we received via e-mail asking how easy or difficult it will be for President-elect Obama to close Guantanamo.
12:30 Benjamin Wittes: It’s not an easy process—unless he means to leave American detention policy largely unchanged and merely move it from Gitmo to some other combination of military detention facilities. That would not be profoundly difficult, but it would likely not satisfy the domestic and international clamor for change either. It would simply recreate Guantanamo at some other location. If he means to create a more systematic change in the policy itself, the challenges are very significant. I don’t think they’re insurmountable, but they will take time, energy, and creativity—and the solutions may prove disquieting to many people.
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