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Obama orders Bay shut, names conflict envoys

Washington, January 23, 2009

President Barack Obama ordered the closing of Guantanamo prison and named veteran troubleshooters for the Middle East and Afghanistan as he moved swiftly to repair America's tarnished image abroad.

In a flurry of activity focused squarely on rolling back some of predecessor George W Bush's policies, Obama set a one-year deadline for shutting Guantanamo, barred harsh treatment of terrorism suspects held there and closed secret CIA jails overseas.

The prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba -- where prisoners have been detained for years without charge, some subjected to interrogation that human rights groups say amounted to torture -- had damaged America's moral standing in the world.

'The world needs to understand that America will be unyielding in its defense of its security and relentless in its pursuit of those who would carry out terrorism or threaten the United States,' Obama said after signing a series of orders.

But he said his new administration wanted to send 'an unmistakable signal that our actions in defense of liberty will be (as) just as our cause.'    

While working behind closed doors with advisers to confront the worst financial crisis in decades, Obama used his early public appearances to put foreign policy and national security on the front burner.

'We can no longer afford drift and we no longer can afford delay,' Obama said as he waded into the thicket of diplomacy with a visit to the State Department to preside over the announcements of new conflict envoys.

Former Sen George Mitchell, a seasoned diplomat, was named to help revive stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, which Bush was criticised for failing to give enough attention.

Obama seized the opportunity to pledge to 'actively and aggressively seek a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as Israel and its Arab neighbors' and work to ensure a durable ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

He made a point of backing Israel's 'right to defend itself' against cross-border Hamas rocket fire, but also said it was 'intolerable' for Palestinians, who want a state of their own, to face a 'future without hope.'    

Former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke was appointed the first US envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, a region he called 'the central front' in the battle against terrorism.

Obama has ordered a full review of US strategy in Afghanistan, where he has pledged to boost troop levels. Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding in the remote, mountainous border region of Pakistan near Afghanistan.

The announcements came as Obama, an Illinois Democrat sworn in on Tuesday as the first black US president, acted to tackle a litany of foreign policy challenges bequeathed to him by Bush and highlighted during his run for the White House.

Those include pursuing a policy of broader engagement overseas than Bush, who was was criticized for 'cowboy diplomacy,' and refocusing the fight against terrorism away from the unpopular Iraq war and back to the Afghan conflict.

Obama's decision to visit the State Department before the Pentagon could signal the importance his new administration will put on diplomacy, rather than military muscle, in tackling major conflicts.

Obama made no direct mention of US foe Iran, but seemed to allude to the Islamic republic when he said, 'Going forward, we must make it clear to all countries in the region that external support for terrorist organizations must stop.'    

He has pledged to engage diplomatically with Tehran, in contrast to Bush's strategy of trying to isolate it.

Obama's orders on Guantanamo, established by the Bush administration after the Sept. 11 attacks of 2001, signaled his determination to reverse some of his p




Tags: Middle East | Bay | Obama |

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