Officials: Fate Of Guantanamo Detainees Uncertain

Basic questions remain unanswered over how to prosecute or otherwise deal with hundreds of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Obama administration lawyers acknowledged Tuesday, just over six months before the prison is expected to close. The Defense and Justice departments are reviewing each of the 229 cases of terror suspects and foreign fighters currently at the U.S. Navy prison in Cuba, a process that Pentagon general counsel Jeh C. Johnson said will be finished "before the end of the year."

President Barack Obama has ordered the prison closed by Jan. 22, 2010. But it's still unclear how many of the detainees will face trial, or where, and how many will be held indefinitely.

Those decisions, the lawyers told the Senate Armed Services Committee, will partially determine how many legal rights the prisoners have. "We've certainly made no decisions about that," Johnson said when asked where detainees could be tried in military courts. "We continue to consider various options."

Congress has blocked funding for transferring any Guantanamo detainees into the United States for the 2009 fiscal year ending Sept. 30. Asked how many of the 229 detainees would be prosecuted by the military instead of the Justice Department, Johnson would not say. Nor could he say how many detainees may never go to court, and instead be held indefinitely under laws of war.

"We should all assume that, for purposes of national security and the protection of the American people, there will be at the end of this review a category of people that we in the administration believe must be retained for reasons of public safety and national security," Johnson told Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. "And they're not necessarily people that we'll prosecute."

The Justice Department is looking at prosecuting about 30 cases, with an estimated 30 more cases to be tried in military commissions, a senior Obama administration official said later Tuesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the process remains fluid and could change.

The government hopes to transfer many of the detainees — including up to 100 Yemenis — to other nations for rehabilitation or release. A small but undetermined number of the remainder could be imprisoned indefinitely in what critics call the continuation of one of former President George W. Bush's most controversial policies.

Tuesday's hearing did not touch on the urgency of solving the Guantanamo quandary before Jan. 22. Instead, the senators and lawyers debated ways to rewrite a 2006 military tribunal system that severely limited detainees' legal rights.

A Justice Department-led review on possible options for how to deal with future detainees is due July 21. It's likely that deadline will be extended because the review is not finished, the administration official said. The Senate could vote as early as next week on a bipartisan plan that bars from court hearsay and statements given under cruel, inhuman or degrading duress.

"What we're focusing on is the procedures that would be used wherever they're tried, whether they keep Gitmo open or closed," Senate Armed Forces Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., said after the hearing.

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