Guantánamo Bay

History

The U.S. presence in Guantánamo dates to the Spanish-American War of 1898, when some of the first American forces to land on the island encamped there. The United States effectively required Cuba to grant a lease as a condition for the post-war withdrawal of American forces, and the original 1903 agreement declares that “the United States shall exercise complete jurisdiction and control” over the base. A follow-up 1934 agreement permits the United States to maintain Guantánamo as long as it desires, subject to termination only if the base is abandoned or by mutual agreement of the two nations.

A week after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Congress authorized President George W. Bush to use military force against individuals or groups responsible for those events or aiding those who were. The United States began military operations in Afghanistan against al Qaeda and the Taliban the following month. U.S. forces captured some suspected terrorists in the course of these operations, but many of the eventual Guantánamo detainees were foreigners turned over by Afghans or Pakistanis in exchange for substantial cash rewards.

As the number of detainees held in Afghanistan increased, U.S. officials sought a secure detention facility where those suspected of having useful intelligence information could be interrogated at length. Guantánamo was ultimately selected because it was secure, remote from public view, and because it was believed that no U.S. court could exercise oversight by entertaining detainee petitions for habeas corpus. Support for this view was found in a 1950 Supreme Court decision, [Page 239]Johnson v. Eisentrager, which appeared to draw geographic limits in denying habeas relief to foreign nationals imprisoned by U.S. forces in Germany after World War II.

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