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DUBLIN -- Ireland has agreed to accept two inmates from the Guantanamo prison camp in Cuba, Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern announced Wednesday. Ahern said the two men belong to a group of about 50 inmates who are "no longer regarded as posing a threat to security but who cannot return to their own countries." He declined to identify them, but other officials confirmed that both are from Uzbekistan and seized in neighboring Afghanistan in bitterly disputed circumstances. Ahern's announcement came as he met newly appointed U.S. Ambassador Dan Rooney following a visit last week by Irish officials to Washington...

Drew Brees is a great quarterback but every once in awhile he makes a bad pass. ... I was on vacation at the time of the radio interview on July 10, but I'm surprised his comments about the controversial facility did not raise more eyebrows locally or nationally. "I can say this after that experience -- the worst thing we can do is shut that baby down, for a lot of reasons," Brees said. "But I think there's a big misconception as to how we are treating those prisoners; those detainees over there. They are being treated probably 10 times...

Michigan lawmakers want Gitmo detainees Published: July 24, 2009 at 12:46 PM WASHINGTON, July 24 (UPI) -- Some Democratic lawmakers from Michigan are viewing the Guantanamo detainees as a possible means of boosting their state's finances, legislators say. Several Democrat members in the U.S. House and Senate are floating the idea of housing detainees from the U.S. detention facility in Cuba in Michigan prisons set to close because of the state's budget crunch, The Hill reported Friday. The move would save or create jobs in a state with the nation's highest unemployment rate of 15.4 percent. Democratic Sen. Carl Levin...

WASHINGTON, July 24, 2009 – Plans to close the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within President Barack Obama’s one-year time frame are on track, the Pentagon’s top lawyer said today. The military held about 240 detainees at the center when Obama pledged days after his inauguration in January to close the facility. Since then, the interagency group assigned to reviewing the cases has made recommendations on more than half, including approving the transfer of more than 50 detainees to other countries, Jeh C. Johnson, the Defense Department general counsel, told the House Armed Services Committee in a prepared...

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration on Friday signaled it intends to bring a second Guantanamo Bay detainee to the United States for trial in criminal court. Federal prosecutors told a court Friday they no longer plan to hold Mohammed Jawad as a wartime prisoner. Instead, they wrote in a court filing, they plan to begin a criminal investigation. That would most likely mean bringing him to criminal trial in the United States. Even if that happens, Jawad is not likely to be transferred soon. For the time being, prosecutors say, he will remain at the Navy-run detention center at Guantanamo...

The Pentagon's top lawyer says the Obama administration hasn't given up the possibility of transferring some prisoners from Guantanamo Bay Naval Base to a detention facility in the United States, despite congressional opposition. Defense Department General Counsel Jeh Charles Johnson told the House Armed Services Committee Friday that it's possible some terror suspects may be transferred to the U.S. for prosecution and others may be held within the U.S. He said no prisoners would be released from custody inside the country. Congress has prohibited the government from spending federal funds to transfer Guantanamo prisoners to the U.S. Johnson also said...

Make room for jihadi! Tim Sumner reports at 9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America that the Obama administration is shuffling prisoners and clearing out beds for Gitmo detainees.

The 2010 trial for a Guantanamo detainee charged in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa has been moved further from the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan moved the trial from Sept. 13, 2010, to Sept. 27, 2010, after defense lawyer Gregory Cooper complained. Cooper said the first date would prejudice the jury against Ahmed Ghailani (guh-LAHN'-ee).

In yet another failure to honor its promises to civil libertarians, the Obama Administration has failed to honor its own deadline for the submission of a report on its policy for the detention of terror suspects. The report was expected to give details on Obama’s promise to shutdown the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay. Obama has reportedly decided to give his Administration another six months. The delay occurs at a time when the Administration has been adopting, and in some cases expanding, Bush terror policies. This includes the statement of Administration officials that, even if a detainee is acquitted...

ESPN banned staffers from the New York Post from appearing on any of its programming on Wednesday after the newspaper published photos this week taken from a video showing sideline reporter Erin Andrews... - - clip - - "Kelly McBride, a journalism ethics expert with the Florida-based Poynter Institute, said..." "There is some illegally obtained material, leaked documents or video of a CIA person torturing a soldier, or stuff taken out of Gitmo, that I think has great public importance," McBride said. "But this doesn't do that at all."

U.S. Rep. Randy Forbes, just back from a fact-finding trip to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, says the visit reinforced his opposition to closing the facility and moving the detainees held there to the United States. President Barack Obama has pledged to close the prison by January, pleasing human rights advocates who said reports of inhumane treatment there stained the nation’s reputation. But the White House said Monday that a task force studying how to do that has been given another six months to deliver its recommendations. That delay poses a “huge difficulty” for prosecutors building cases...

Note: The following text is a quote: Detention Policy Task Force Issues Preliminary Report The Department of Justice and Department of Defense today announced that the Detention Policy Task Force, which was created pursuant to Executive Order 13493, has issued a preliminary report on military commissions and a process for the determination of prosecution forum for trials of suspected terrorists. A copy of the report is attached. As authorized by the Executive Order, the Attorney General and Secretary of Defense have also decided to extend by six months the period in which the Task Force will conduct its work and...

Six-Month Delay for Obama-Gitmo Report Washington Post: Task Force on Detentions Still Working, Though Administration Remains Committed to Closing Prison (Washington Post) This story was written by Peter Finn. The Obama administration is delaying completion of reports examining U.S. detention and interrogation policy, officials said Monday, in a sign of the formidable issues it faces in grappling with how to handle terrorism suspects as it prepares to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay. The work of a Justice Department-led task force, which had been scheduled to send a report on detention policy to President Obama on Tuesday, will be...

Washington -- Obama administration officials said Monday they would not meet self-imposed deadlines for deciding what to do with scores of detainees too dangerous to release from the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The delays, involving those who cannot be tried, raise questions about whether the White House can close the prison by January, as President Obama pledged when he took office. But the officials acknowledged that two reports that were supposed to be delivered to the president by Wednesday -- one on how to overhaul the nation's detention policy and another on interrogation policy -- would not be ready....

Senator Jim Inhofe, one of the few elected officials who uses the sense God gave him, will introduce an amendment late today or tomorrow that will prohibit bringing detainees at the Guantanomo Bay prison to the United States. He has a petition he would like people to sign that he would like to present along with that amendment. It is here. Please look to the left for the Sign Petition Here button. http://inhofe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=85a9de00-802a-23ad-46ac-a02dc0ebb8b8 I hope we can help him out.

Senior administration officials insisted Monday that they have made substantial progress on closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, even though two task forces set up to plan for the closure have asked for extensions. The administration’s detention policy task force and the interrogation task force -- both created by executive order -- have asked for six-month and two-month extensions, respectively. A third task force set up to assess each detainee is “on track,” an official said. One official blamed the delays in the other two task forces on the Bush administration. “These are issues frankly that could have been...

An Obama administration task force set up to develop a plan for the closure of the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay will miss its first deadline this week—and put off a key report until the fall—amid continued divisions over how to resolve one of the president's thorniest policy dilemmas. The task force, set up on Obama's second day in office, was charged with preparing a report to the president by Tuesday, July 21, outlining a long-term detention plan for detainees captured in counterterrorism operations after Sept. 11. But continued debate within the task force over the legal basis for...

I'm feeling pretty badly for Obama. The poor guy is just getting slapped silly on the foreign front. His domestic plans are unraveling like a cheap sweater. The stimulus ain't stimulating, and the rumbles of withdrawing it are being heard. Congress is starting to vote against him. My word, the dude did that presser-nonpresser the other day about health-care and I thought he was going to go all Buckwheat on us. The lad needs a win. And I have just the idea for him.

A Pentagon official Thursday largely refused to answer lawmakers' questions about why members of Congress are prohibited from meeting with Guantanamo detainees, even as intelligence officials from China and elsewhere were allegedly allowed to visit Guantanamo and interrogate prisoners held there. "You allowed intelligence agents of a foreign country to interrogate [Uighur detainees], but you are concerned about their safety and that's why you don't allow United States members of Congress [to visit]?" pressed Rep. Jim Moran, D-VA, in a series of rhetorical questions. "You are concerned about 'public curiosity' -- apparently you're implying we'd be seeing them out of...