In a speech at the National Archives on May 21, 2009, President Barack Obama said: ” ‘Rather than keeping us safer, the prison at Guantánamo has weakened American national security. It is a rallying cry for our enemies. It sets back the willingness of our allies to work with us in fighting an enemy that operates in scores of countries. By any measure, the costs of keeping it open far exceed the complications involved in closing it. That’s why I argued that it should be closed throughout my campaign, and that is why I ordered it closed within one year.’ ”
– Barack Obama (courtesy White House Archives), “Verbatim: Obama’s May 2009 Detainee Policy Speech,” The Miami Herald, May 21, 2009