Gitmo May Close, but Fate of Detainees Uncertain

June 23, 2007 — -- Sixteen people were arrested in front of the White House Saturday as part of a demonstration against the administration's alleged use of torture at detention facilities like Guantanamo Bay.

"What's going on there is just unconscionable," said Ray McGovern, a former CIA officer who spoke at the rally. "Creating the equivalent of a gulag -- as we used to accuse the Soviet Union of doing -- putting people in there and then violating not only our own common law, but how many centuries of habeas corpus ... now that's about as bad as it gets."

Administration officials say they have always planned to shut down Guantanamo -- the facility in Cuba that houses war on terror detainees -- eventually.

President Bush declared more than a year ago that he'd like to see the detention facility emptied. Defense Secretary Robert Gates echoed that view last March.

"The president said he'd like the close the facility there," Gates said. "I'd like to close the facility there."

But pressure to close Guantanamo has been building -- from the courts and from Congress, as well as from human rights activists -- and many administration officials concede it has become a lightning rod that is damaging the United States's credibility at home and abroad.

Actually shutting down the prison, however, may be easier said than done. The biggest problem for the White House is where to place all the detainees, at least some of whom rank among the world's most dangerous suspected terrorists.

"They can't hold them forever," said Jim Walsh of the MIT Security Studies Program. "They don't have a tribunal system that works and they don't want to transfer them to the U.S. So, they're really in a quandary over what to do."

More than 400 prisoners already have been transferred to other countries. Many later were released. But 375 suspected al Qaeda or Taliban loyalists still are being held.

If the detainees are transferred to American soil, they would almost certainly gain new legal rights and protections.

Some may ultimately be exonerated for lack of evidence. Experts say many detainees probably should never have been there in the first place. Many, for example, were turned in by the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan in exchange for bounties being offered by the United States.

"They are going to go to the press and talk about how they were mistreated," said Walsh. "They may file lawsuits."

White House officials now are scrambling to come up with a workable plan. This week, a high-level meeting on Guantanamo was abruptly cancelled after it was leaked to the media.

"That meeting was not a decisional meeting," said Deputy White House Press Secretary Dana Perino. "There was nothing imminent coming out of that meeting."

Perino added that she knows of no immediate plans to shut down the prison.

"What I can tell you is that these matters are very complex," she said.

Whatever solution they come up with will take time to implement. Since the White House does not want Guantanamo to be part of President Bush's legacy, the clock is ticking.