President Obama speaking to the press today (Getty Images)

President Obama renewed his vow to close the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, telling reporters today, “I’m going to go back at this. I’m going to reengage with Congress to try to make the case that this is not something that’s in the best interests of the American people.”

He called the facility is expensive and inefficient. “It hurts us in terms of our international standing,” Obama said. “It lessens cooperation with our allies on counterterrorism efforts. It is a recruitment tool for extremists. It needs to be closed.”

Now, Congress determined that they would not let us close it—-and despite the fact that there are a number of the folks who are currently in Guantanamo who the courts have said could be returned to their country of origin or potentially a third country.

I’m going to go back at this. I’ve asked my team to review everything that’s currently being done in Guantanamo, everything that we can do administratively. And I’m going to reengage with Congress to try to make the case that this is not something that’s in the best interest of the American people. And it’s not sustainable.

The notion that we’re going to continue to keep over a hundred individuals in a no-man’s land in perpetuity, even at a time when we’ve wound down the war in Iraq, we’re winding down the war in Afghanistan, we’re having success defeating al Qaeda core, we’ve kept the pressure up on all these transnational terrorist networks, when we’ve transferred detention authority in Afghanistan—the idea that we would still maintain forever a group of individuals who have not been tried, that is contrary to who we are, it is contrary to our interests, and it needs to stop.

Now, it’s a hard case to make because I think for a lot of Americans the notion is out of sight, out of mind. And it’s easy to demagogue the issue. That’s what happened the first time this came up. I’m going to go back at it because I think it’s important.

As for force-feeding detainees who are on hunger strike, largely due to the the lengthy imprisonment without trial, Obama said, “I don’t want these individuals to die. Obviously, the Pentagon is trying to manage the situation as best as they can.” The President said that civilian courts are capable of trying terrorists, “The individual who attempted to bomb Times Square—in prison, serving a life sentence. The individual who tried to bomb a plane in Detroit—in prison, serving a life sentence. A Somali who was part of Al-Shabaab, who we captured —in prison. So we can handle this.”