USA: Guantánamo prison chief says he has no say in Trump policy

The prison commander said Sunday he has neither seen nor wants a say on any coming Trump administration executive order that will drive policy on law of war detention here.

“Nobody’s asked for my opinion,” Rear Adm. Peter J. Clarke said at a news conference. A reporter asked the 16th commander of the wartime prison whether he has been provided a draft of President Donald Trump’s evolving Guantánamo policy.

He has not. “I don’t need to provide my input to policy decisions. I simply need to understand how the policy’s going to carried out,” he said.

To that end, Clarke said he had yet to receive an order to prepare to receive new captives. The last captive arrived nearly a decade ago, and is held in Guantánamo’s most secret prison, Camp 7. The admiral said he expected there would be time to prepare.

“I’m confident that I will get a little more notice than, ‘There’s a plane in the air that’s going to land in four hours’ or whatever the case may be,” he said. “A few days, if that’s all I have, will be adequate for me to receive a small number of detainees.”

The New York Times obtained a draft executive order that had the White House authorizing the addition of captives tied to the Islamic State. The detention center currently has 41 captives, all believed tied to al-Qaida or the Taliban, and commanders say that, depending on who arrives and how they might need to be imprisoned, Guantánamo could perhaps absorb 200 more captives.

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