Experts estimate it has cost the government over $2 billion to fund Gitmo since it was opened 11 years ago.
Guantanamo Bay has now been dubbed “the most expensive prison on Earth,” and according to Reuters, President Obama has now cited the cost as just one of many reasons to close the detention center. The estimated cost of running the prison and military court system at the base in Cuba? $150 million a year, which means the military is spending more than $900,000 per detainee a year.
Ken Gude, chief of staff and vice president at the liberal Center for American Progress think tank, which has been following the developments at Guantanamo Bay since 2005 said, “It’s extremely inefficient. That … may be what finally gets us to actually close the prison. I mean the costs are astronomical, when you compare them to what it would cost to detain somebody in the United States.” Super-max prisons in the US reportedly spend between $60-70,000 on individual inmates per year, while federal prisons average about $30,000.
Just one inmate from Guantanamo, for example, is equivalent to the cost of 12 weeks of White House tours for the public – a treasured tradition that the Secret Service says costs $74,000 a week and that has been axed under sequestration.
A single inmate is also the equivalent of keeping open the control tower at the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport for 45 months. That control tower, another victim of cuts, costs $20,000 per month to run.
The $900,000 also matches the funding for nearly seven states to help serve home delivered meals to the elderly. Sequestration has cost Meals on Wheels a median shortfall of $129,497 per state, the organization says.
Or measured in terms of military spending and national security, the cost of four inmates represents the cost of training an Air Force fighter pilot – based on the Department of Defense’s figure of $3.6 million per pilot.
The problem, according to a Republican aide with the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee is that “there isn’t an alternative at the moment.” He said, “No one has any particular affection for Guantanamo Bay, but no one has come up with a practical solution that’s better.” In an Op-Ed printed in USA Today earlier this week, Representative Buck McKeon argues against closing Guantanamo unless President Obama can come up with “a plan for what to do with the detainees … ‘who are to dangerous to release.'” McKeon, who is the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee wrote, “Until a better solution is offered, at Guantanamo they must stay.”
Among those currently being held at the prison, only nine have been either charged or convicted, 24 are “eligible for possible prosecution,” 86 have been “cleared for transfer or release,” and 47 are not facing prosecution, but are considered too dangerous for release.
Photo: AP/File
The cost of this place is crazy. It’s time it was shut down.