By DEVLIN BARRETT
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON
As President Barack Obama neared his self-imposed deadline to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, the Justice Department offices of the terrorist detention task force were bustling — not with lawyers but construction workers tearing apart the walls, ripping out any trace of the secretive work, though Obama’s goal is still far off.
The staffers were gone, having completed recommendations on detention policy. This Wednesday, the Guantanamo task force made its final recommendations for all of the 196 remaining detainees awaiting transfer, trial or further detention.
Attorney General Eric Holder has reviewed the bulk of those recommendations and decided that the most feared detainee — the self-declared mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — and four henchmen should face trial in New York. For all that work, the Obama administration is still struggling to find the political muscle, diplomatic dexterity and cash from Congress to implement those tough, often unpopular decisions about the remaining detainees.
As one of his very first acts as president, Obama signed an executive order to close the military prison for terror suspects within a year. The one-year mark arrives Friday, and he will miss it by a wide margin, likely a year or more.
He has not offered a new deadline.
On Thursday, a protest over the delay led to 42 arrests. Members of the group Witness Against Torture gathered at the steps of the Capitol, where protesters dressed in jumpsuits held banners with such phrasing as “Broken Promises” or “Broken Laws” or “Broken Lives.”
Unless he decides to change course, to close Gitmo the president must still find support in Congress to pay for a super-secure prison in Illinois for some of the detainees he wants to continue holding. He must also get additional money, likely hundreds of millions of dollars, to provide extra security to put some suspects, including Mohammed, on trial in federal courts.