White House Regroups on Guantanamo as Closing Deadline Looms

With four months to meet its self-imposed deadline to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, the White House is dusting itself off from a series of missteps that have hampered the administration's progress on the issue. The one-year deadline was decided on before President Obama took office, but the legal, political and diplomatic complexities of moving the 200 detainees imprisoned at the Cuban facility have proved more difficult to overcome than anticipated. White House advisers privately acknowledge they erred in not devising a concrete plan for moving the detainees, and in mishandling the issue with Congress.

The administration will need to find facilities to house 50 to 60 prisoners who cannot be released and who cannot be tried because of legal impediments, and must win congressional funding for the closure process, find host countries for detainees cleared for release, and transfer dozens of inmates to federal and military courts for prosecution.

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To complete the closure, the White House has replaced counsel Gregory B. Craig, who had been leading the project. Senior administration officials said Obama has picked Pete Rousse, a top aide frequently called in to fix significant problems, to take over. Craig said that he began the job with the assumption that there was political consensus around closing the controversial prison, and thought lawmakers understood that "keeping Guantanamo open actually did damage to our national security objectives."

White House Regroups on Guantanamo [Washington Post]


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