Pentagon to submit plan for Guantanamo closure

The United States Defense Department is set to submit a plan to the Congress to close the Guantanamo prison, a spokesman says.

The plan to be delivered to Congress on Tuesday will lay out several options on how to close the facility.

"We understand the deadline is tomorrow and it's our intent to meet it," Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told a press briefing on Monday. "We're working on it and intend to submit it soon."

"The plan is to submit to Congress what our thoughts are on the issue and what we see is a way ahead necessary to achieve the closure of Guantanamo and to specifically point out the need for legislative relief," Davis said.

On January 10, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said President Barack Obama would keep his promise to close the American military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before his presidency ends in 2017.

"He feels an obligation to the next president. He will fix this so that they don't have to be confronted with the same set of challenges," McDonough told Fox News.

The plan, however, would trigger a battle with Republican lawmakers who oppose Obama's long-awaited scheme.

Davis said Monday, "We’ve always been very clear about what needs to happen," adding, "So I think you’re going to find as you read it, when you see it, that many of these things you already know.”

Obama had promised to close the Guantanamo Bay prison during the 2008 presidential election campaign, citing its damage to the US reputation abroad.

However, the president backed away on his campaign promise later on due to stiff opposition from Congress.

As many as 775 detainees were brought to the prison, which was set up after the September 11, 2001 attacks. There are 91 detainees left at the prison.

Washington says the prisoners are terror suspects, but has not pressed charges against most of them in any court. Many detainees have been on hunger strike for months to draw attention to their deteriorating conditions.

The Obama administration has transferred most detainees to other countries, but there is a small number of detainees who the administration says it would like to detain in a US facility for national security reasons.

According to US officials, the Pentagon plan would call for sending detainees, who have been cleared for transfer, to their homelands or third countries and bringing the other detainees to US soil.

The Pentagon has already sent assessment teams to some facilities to see if they could be used as maximum-security prisons to house detainees.

These facilities include a high-security federal prison in Florence, Colorado, a military jail at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and the  Naval Consolidated Brig at Charleston, South Carolina.

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