The Bush administration is nearing a decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detainee facility and move its terror suspects to military prisons elsewhere.Senior administration officials said on Thursday consensus is building for a proposal to shut the centre and transfer detainees to Defence Department facilities, including the maximum-security military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where they could face trial.The US is also helping build a prison in Afghanistan that would take some prisoners now at Guantanamo Bay, but the White House said on Friday that it was not meant as an alternative to the detainee facility in Cuba.President Bush’s national security and legal advisers had been scheduled to discuss the move at a meeting on Friday, the officials said, but after news of it broke, the White House said the meeting would not be held and no decision on Guantanamo Bay’s status is imminent.Three senior administration officials, however, spoke about the matter on condition of anonymity.According to the officials, Vice- President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defence Secretary Robert Gates, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen Peter Pace are expected to discuss the issue soon.Previous plans to close Guantanamo ran into resistance from Cheney, Gonzales and former Defence Secretary Donald H Rumsfeld.But officials said the new suggestion is gaining momentum with at least tacit support from the State and Homeland Security departments, the Pentagon and the Intelligence directorate.However, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said on Friday that it would be a mistake to close the detainee facility. Cheney’s office and the Justice Department are also against the step. They argue that moving “unlawful” enemy combatant suspects to the US will give them undeserved legal rights.Pressure to close Guantanamo has been building since a Supreme Court decision last year that found a previous system for prosecuting enemy combatants illegal.Recent rulings by military judges threw out charges against two terror suspects under a new tribunal scheme. Those decisions have dealt a blow to the administration’s efforts to begin prosecuting dozens of Guantanamo detainees regarded as the nation’s most dangerous terror suspects.
