Gitmo to keep key role after detainees

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, May 10 (UPI) -- The U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will continue to play a key role even after terrorism detainees now held there have departed, officials say.

With U.S. President Barack Obama's vow to repatriate the 250 or so remaining detainees now held at Guantanamo Bay, and to close its prison camps, the U.S. military presence will remain at the 45-square-mile base as it fulfills its other missions, The Miami Herald reported Sunday.

For instance, while the prison camps are at the eastern end of the base, the Department of Homeland Security has designated space on the western end to shelter 10,000 refugees in tents should the United States move to provide a haven from a Caribbean humanitarian crisis, the newspaper said.

Officials said the facility's airstrip and seaport will still be used by the Coast Guard and Navy for interdiction operations against drug smugglers and seaborne illegal immigrants, thus preserving its "core mission," Navy Chief Petty Officer Bill Mesta, the base public affairs officer, told the Herald.

"We're going to continue on," he said. "We're the only base in the Caribbean. We're the only base in the Fourth Fleet. We're not going anywhere."