On Monday’s edition of NBC’s “Hallie Jackson Now,” NBC News Correspondent Courtney Kube reported that the Biden administration planned to transfer the eleven Guantanamo Bay detainees that were transferred to Oman on Monday back in 2023, but officials were worried about “the political optics” of “sending them to Oman where they could be released, free.”
Kube said, “[W]hy this case is particularly important is not just the number…but the fact that they have been approved for transfer for years.”
She continued, “In fact, we were following this for months, Hallie, and in October of 2023, just as we were about to report on their transfer to Oman, literally hours before they were supposed to get on the plane, the Biden administration pulled back the decision to transfer them to Oman. The officials who we spoke with cited concerns about the optics of taking these men out of Guantanamo Bay, essentially sending them to Oman where they could be released, free. We don’t know exactly all the details of their transfer, and they were worried about the political optics literally days after the October 7 attacks in Israel.”
Kube further stated that “all eleven of these detainees have been cleared, none of them were ever tried or even charged with these crimes. One of them was even cleared almost 15 years ago.” And that it has been difficult to find a country that could take the detainees “and whether the U.S. and this other nation would be able to come to a security agreement that the U.S. would find — would be okay with sending the men there.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.