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The Senate voted on Wednesday to yank money for closing the Guantanamo Bay detention camp from a war spending bill, delivering a setback to President Obama in his efforts to shutter the prison by the start of 2010. By a vote of 90-6, the Senate approved 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. Sen. Dan Inouye, D-Hawaii, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the vote to strip the $80 million Obama...

Senate has voted to block transfer of Gitmo prisoners to U.S.A.

The director said he was generally concerned about whether such individuals might provide financial support to terror networks, radicalize others, or even take part in attacks within the United States.

Mr Obama had asked for $80 million from Congress to pay for relocating the 240 prisoners still held on the US naval base in Cuba, but Democratic senators joined Republicans in demanding that a clear plan for the closure be presented before they approved the money. With American allies currently prepared to take more than a handful of the detainees, and others unwanted by their home countries, Republicans have successfully raised fears have that many will be freed into the US prisons or the public at large.

A press release: Senators Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) today introduced the Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act which would establish a procedure to block release of the detainee photos. The Senators plan to offer the legislation as an amendment to the Supplemental Appropriations bill that is being deliberated on the Senate floor this week. Last week, after consulting with General Petraeus, General Odierno, and others, President Obama decided to fight the release of photographs that depict the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. Those photographs are the subject of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) finally told the truth about President Barack Obama's plan to bring Guantanamo detainees into the United States. The New York Times (and others) has Senator Reid on the record: Mr. Reid in his comments, however, was unequivocal in insisting that the terror suspects never reach American shores. “You can’t put them in prison unless you release them,” he said. “We will never allow terrorists to be released in the United States.” Setting aside the 17 Uighurs at Gitmo, think about what Senator Reid just said. Attorney General Holder has stated many of the 240...

Earlier today Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said at a news conference that he doesn't want any Gitmo detainees held in prisons in the United States. CQ has the transcript: QUESTION: (inaudible) REID: Change course on what? QUESTION: On funding the closing of Guantanamo Bay. REID: Well, the decision to close Guantanamo was a right one. I agree with President Bush. I agree with John McCain. I agree with Barack Obama. Guantanamo makes us less save. However, this is neither the time nor the bill to deal with this. Democrats under no circumstances will move forward without a comprehensive, responsible...

Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano on Tuesday dodged nearly every question concerning the transfer of detainees being held at Guantanamo prison to the United States, saying only that the department was involved in the prisoners’ review. “One of the reasons we are there is to bring to the table what would need to be

WASHINGTON — In an abrupt shift, Senate Democratic leaders said on Tuesday that they would not provide the $80 million that President Obama requested to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. [snip] Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, seemed to ramp up the concerns of Congressional Democrats, insisting during a news conference that lawmakers would never allow the terror suspects to be released into the United States and suggesting that they would never allow them to be transferred to American prisons. “Guantanamo makes us less safe,” Mr. Reid said. “However this is neither the time nor the...

Moving to avoid a bitter partisan feud, Senate Democratic leaders have decided to remove from a war spending bill the $80 million that President Obama had requested to close the detention center for terrorist suspects at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. House Democrats had already removed the money from their version of the $96.7 billion military spending measure, which will finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and some other national security programs through Sept. 30. It was overwhelmingly approved last week by the House. The Senate had included the money in its version of the legislation, headed for a vote this...

To be more precise: He now opposes closing it anytime soon but naturally is A-OK with closing it at some murky, distant time in the future. Which, as far as I can tell, means he holds the same position on it as George W. Bush or Dick Cheney. Moe Lane thinks this is poll-driven but I’m more inclined to believe that someone with a national security background like Webb’s knew all along that it was a bad idea to close it and was simply giving The One political cover until there was a fig leaf available to let him flip-flop....

WASHINGTON - Republican Sen. John Ensign said Friday that even if military detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are not charged with any crimes, they should remain at the military detention facility and can be held there until the war against terrorism ends. Ensign acknowledged that the Guantanamo facility is not helpful for the United States’ standing overseas, especially in Middle Eastern and European countries. But after returning from a congressional day-trip to the camp on Friday, Ensign argued that the terror suspects are being treated well and are too dangerous to be transferred to facilities in the U.S. “They are...

With Capitol Hill Republicans cranking up the volume on the issue of where to send alleged terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Democratic Sen. Jim Webb (Va.) reversed himself Sunday, and questioned President Obama's "artificial timelines" for closing the facility. Webb, appearing on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" with Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, said that after reviewing Obama's plans to close the facility within one year, he doesn't agree with the president's time schedule and he opposes bringing any detainees to U.S. soil. "We spend hundreds of millions of dollars building an appropriate facility with all security precautions in...

Even as congressional Democrats feuded last week with the CIA in what at times seemed to be a throwback to the 1970s, President Obama was headed in the other direction in what may have been his most active week yet as commander in chief. He pushed through the House a spending bill to finance the war in Afghanistan and reversed himself, deciding to fight the release of photos purportedly showing humiliating treatment of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. Obama also announced he would have some detainees at the U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, tried by military commissions, putting...

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said that he is working with the Obama administration on crafting an indefinite detention policy for enemy combatants being held in Guantanamo Bay, saying that he thinks they should be held in military prisons in the United States. Military prisons are the proper place for captured terrorists to be held, said Graham. He made his comments on Capitol Hill last week after a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on Bush administration legal memos that authorized enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, against some captured terrorists. Concerning what to do with the detainees, Graham said it is “a dilemma”...

Cheney antiterror policies are by now routine: for example, opposing the release of prisoner abuse photographs and support for indefinite detention for some detainees, and that's just this week. More remarkable is White House creativity in portraying these U-turns as epic change. Witness yesterday's announcement endorsing military commissions. White House officials insist that their tribunals will be kinder and gentler, stressing additional due-process safeguards for terrorists on trial for war crimes. But the debate that has convulsed the political system since 9/11 isn't about procedural nuances. It has been over core principles, with Democrats decrying a "shadow justice system" and...

May 15, 2009 Note: The following text is a quote: United States Transfers Lakhdar Boumediene to France Lakhdar Boumediene, an Algerian national who had been held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility since 2002, has been transferred to France. As directed by the President’s Jan. 22, 2009, Executive Order, the interagency Guantanamo Review Task Force conducted a comprehensive review of Boumediene’s case. As a result of that review, Boumediene was approved for transfer to France, which was carried out today pursuant to an arrangement between the United States and France. Boumediene was involved in the Supreme Court case, Boumediene v....

WASHINGTON — South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham praised President Barack Obama's decision to maintain a system of military tribunals for some of the detainees reflects the standards he originally advocated before the Supreme Court forced a compromise with President George W. Bush. Graham, a military lawyer who's served on active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, said he's had three conversations with Obama since December about detainee issues, along with more frequent contacts with senior administration and military officials. "We've got a chance to start over and do what I wanted to do seven years ago," Graham said. "That is,...

Intelligence Trail What Pelosi said she knew * August 2002: Justice Department authorizes waterboarding and other 'enhanced interrogation' techniques (EITs). The CIA uses the technique. * September 2002: Nancy Pelosi, ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, is briefed on the techniques. * February 2003: A Pelosi aide attends a briefing with the new ranking member on the committee, Jane Harman. Pelosi later says that she learns after this meeting that the techniques have already been used, and that she 'concurred' with Harman's letter to the CIA protesting the decision to use them. * December 2007: A news report quotes...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Obama is planning on Friday to resume the Bush administration's controversial military commission system for some Guantanamo detainees -- which he suspended in his first week in office -- according to three administration officials.Some of the high-profile terror suspects who are being charged in the military commission process include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-confessed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. The administration officials stressed that the updated system will include expanded due-process rights for the suspects, which administration officials note is consistent with what Obama pushed for as a senator in 2006 in order to improve upon...