ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the multiple obstacles to Obama's efforts to discontinue use of the prison facility. It is easy to see this pattern applied to Guantanamo in his campaign speeches and throughout his years in office, he consistently framed closing the prison as a moral imperative and an essential reassertion of the rule of law. Edwards's work captured another critical angle of Obama's leadership efforts on Guantanamo. Guantanamo was just a pain-in-the-ass distraction, he told Craig. The conflict between Emanuel and Craig grew out of Emanuel's single-minded goal to ensure the passage of health insurance reform early in Obama's tenure. The primary reason Guantanamo was selected as a detention center by Bush administration officials soon after the 9/11 attacks was that they believed it to be a location where US law would not apply, although the 2004 Supreme Court decision in Rasul disproved that assumption. It is telling that Obama commented on Guantanamo in his end-of-term reflections on his presidency.
