Obama Tries to Keep Order Among Democrats on Gitmo

By Trish Turner/AP

President Obama will deliver a speech Thursday addressing plans to close the Guantanamo detention camp, as Democrats back off support for funding the closure. President Obama is trying to keep Democratic unrest from derailing his plans to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, offering up a speech Thursday meant to shed light on how the administration expects to transfer 240 detainees off the island.

The speech already appears to be overdue, considering the resistance and mixed messages coming from top-ranking Democrats over the issue on Capitol Hill. On Wednesday, the Senate will vote on an amendment that not only blocks supplemental funds from being used to close Guantanamo and move detainees to U.S. soil, but also orders that no funds already in U.S. coffers be redirected toward that purpose. The amendment precludes the upgrade of any U.S. facility or the building of any new facility to house detainees. The supplemental bill on which senators are voting lasts until the new budget year, which starts on Oct 1. The amendments complicating Guantanamo closure don't stop there. This afternoon, the Senate is expected to vote on an amendment from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., that would mandate a U.S. threat assessment for every single detainee at Gitmo. Such votes make assurances from Obama Thursday all the more important.

Democrats had been hammered by Republicans, some of whom don't want Guantanamo shuttered at all, over the possibility that detainees could be sent to live in the United States -- in prisons or otherwise. Democrats agreed with that line Tuesday, deciding to pull $80 million from the war funding bill for the closure plan proposed by the president. They told the administration the money could be forthcoming, once the president presents a plan, that is now expected to be enacted in just seven months. Michele Flournoy, Obama's new Pentagon policy chief, said members of Congress must rethink their opposition to accepting these detainees into the United States. Flournoy said it is unrealistic to think that no detainees will come to the United States, and that the U.S. cannot ask allies to take detainees while refusing to take on the same burden. Without singling anyone out, Flournoy said lawmakers need to think more "strategically." White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that Obama will detail a "hefty part" of his plan for the detainees in his speech on Thursday. "We agree with Congress that before resources, that they should receive a more detailed plan," Gibbs said.

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