10 seconds ago 2009-11-28T07:45:04-08:00
BRUSSELS (AFP) – Guantanamo Bay was used as a "recruiting tool" for terrorism more than anything else, US homeland security chief Janet Napolitano said Friday, during a visit to the European parliament.
"Guantanamo has been used more as a recruiting tool than anything else," she told members of the European parliament's civil liberties committee in Brussels.
Therefore "it needs to be closed and the individuals dealt with appropriately," she added.
Napolitano stressed President Barack Obama's commitment to close down the Guantanamo Bay camp in Cuba in January.
"The president's executive order that it be closed remains in effect... we are working through individual by individual," she said.
Napolitano said the United States thanked some member states for agreeing to take some of the Guantanamo inmates and said the State Department was negotiating with others.
"Some need to be prosecuted in the United States," she added.
There are still 215 detainees at Guantanamo. Obama's administration has acknowledged it may not meet a self-imposed deadline of January 22 for shutting the facility.
