Michael Rolston, rawstory.com
House Democrats have dropped plans to use the coming Defense Supplemental Appropriations legislation to permanently close the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, RAW STORY has learned. One House Democrat sitting on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee promised the party would return to the issue later in the year when taking up the standard Defense funding bill.
“Guantanamo is not included in this bill,” confirmed an Appropriations aide to RAW STORY yesterday.
Rep. John Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who chairs the Defense Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, had announced his plans in a video posted by the group Stand Up Congress in February to use the Defense Supplemental bill to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, where alleged terrorists have been held since 2002.