WASHINGTON – The Bush administration is developing a long-range plan to empty the Guantanamo Bay military prison that could include asking Congress to spell out procedures for scores of suspected terrorists whom the government doesn't plan to bring to trial, administration officials and others familiar with high-level White House discussions on the issue said yesterday.
Under one scenario being considered by President Bush's Cabinet, about 80 detainees would remain at Guantanamo Bay to be tried by military commissions and about 65 others would be turned over to their native countries, according to several sources familiar with the talks, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.
But the focus of the intensifying debate is what to do with about 120 remaining prisoners viewed by the administration as too dangerous to release but unlikely to be brought before military commissions because of a lack of evidence. Officials are considering whether to propose legislation to establish legal procedures for such prisoners, who could be transferred to military or civilian prisons on the U.S. mainland, sources said.
The debate follows a Supreme Court ruling last month that gave Guantanamo detainees the right to challenge their imprisonment in U.S. civilian courts. Senior administration officials have been scrambling since then to formulate a response, including holding Cabinet-level meetings on the topic in the past two days, officials said.
Bush has said for two years that he'd like to close Guantanamo Bay, but he and his aides stressed yesterday that no such decision has been made. Instead, officials said, the administration's debate is focused on what steps would be necessary for such a closure, including moving scores of terrorism suspects to other U.S. detention facilities. “We're analyzing the decision and how to move forward, and there's no decision that is imminent on Guantanamo,” Bush said in an interview yesterday with Fox News. “But nevertheless, we have an obligation to live under the law, so we are fully analyzing the impact of the law . . . We'll get it done as quickly as possible.”
One official close to the internal discussions said there is a consensus in favor of legislation to deal with the problems posed by the high court's ruling, but the details are being debated. It also isn't clear, this official said, whether the Democratic Congress would pass such controversial legislation in a presidential election year.
Lawmakers in Kansas, for example, have reacted negatively to a proposal from GOP presidential candidate John McCain to move some detainees to the military prison at Fort Leavenworth. The presumptive Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, also has said that he'd move detainees to Leavenworth and other civilian and military facilities, and that he'd close Guantanamo.
There are about 265 detainees at Guantanamo, set up in January 2002 to hold terrorism suspects captured after the Sept. 11 attacks. The decision to detain people there has since become the target of heated international criticism.
Twenty detainees are charged as part of a military commission system set up by Congress in 2006, including five accused of participating in the conspiracy that led to the Sept. 11 attacks.
