Coast Guard ends post-9/11 anti-terrorism patrols at Guantánamo Bay
The news
The U.S. Coast Guard has suspended its anti-terrorism patrols in the waters around Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and a special security operation rushed to the remote outpost after the September 11 attacks.
Crews in special fast boats equipped with M2 heavy machine guns patrolled the coast near the prison complex for 21 years as part of the detention operations at the base. Members of the Coast Guard also served as courtroom guards at military commission hearings and were staffed bunkers by the sea with sandbags which the military called “combat positions.”
The recent move is the latest reduction in forces assigned to the detention operation, which held 780 prisoners between 2002 and 2008, all brought by the George W. Bush administration. The number has dwindled to 30 prisoners from 40 at the start of the Biden administration.
The military had already reduced prison staff to about 1,000 military and civilians with the closure of Camp 7, which held so-called high-value prisoners, and the withdrawal of a public affairs unit.
Why it matters: The mission had cost tens of millions of dollars each year.
The withdrawal of the Coast Guard unit is likely to save money on what has been an expensive undertaking in the war on terror. In 2019, the operation cost more than $13 million per inmate per year.
In a report to Congressthe Department of Homeland Security said it spent more than $50 million in 2021 to send and retain 180 Coast Guard members to Guantánamo Bay.
The decision also likely signals an intelligence inquiry that has subsided fears that Al Qaeda or other enemies would attack the base from the sea.
Background: The deployment was a response to post-9/11 fear.
The Department of Defense sent the first Coast Guard port security unit to Guantánamo in January 2002, before the first detainees arrived.
Thirty-nine U.S.-based Coast Guard or Coast Guard Reserve security units deployed after the detention operation, beginning and ending with the same Virginia Unit, who shut down the military mission this week.
The special teams, with gunners equipped with .50 caliber machine guns, were a constant security presence in the bay as US troops moved prisoners from the base airstrip to the prison.
Commanders of the detention operations said over the years that no enemy troops had ever been encountered, although the units intercepted would-be migrants approaching the base from time to time.
What’s next: The existing base forces will fulfill their tasks.
The Coast Guard said in a press release that the port patrol and naval security forces at the base would perform “anti-terrorism force protection” duties. These units do not work for the detention operation, but fall under the commander of the naval base.
The Coast Guard announced this week that hearings had resumed at Guantanamo in a death penalty case against a Saudi detainee accused of orchestrating the Al Qaeda suicide bombing of the warship USS Cole off the coast of Yemen on Oct. 12, 2000. Seventeen sailors came to.
This month, the military will install its 22nd Guantánamo detention mission commander. A Colonel of the Army will take charge after two decades led by one and two star generals or admirals.