It’s amazing what a little accountability will do for you:
President Barack Obama’s allies in the Senate will not provide funds to close the Guantanamo Bay prison next January, a top Democratic official said Tuesday. With debate looming on Obama’s spending request to cover military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the official says Democrats will deny the Pentagon and Justice Department $80 million to relocate Guantanamo’s 240 detainees…. It appears to be a tactical retreat. Once the administration develops a plan to close the facility, congressional Democrats are likely to revisit the topic, provided they are satisfied there are adequate safeguards.
If Dick Cheney is losing the argument over detention policy, I’d love to see what winning looks like. At this point the administration is set to preserve the same basic structure of the Bush administration’s detention scheme — military commissions for some and indefinite detention for others — while a Democratic Congress moves to preserve the actual structure at Gitmo. Yes, the Democrats may provide the funds if the administration ever presents a plan for where these terrorists will be kept inside the United States, but that will be a major fight and it’s anything but a done deal. And even if the administration prevails, it’s hard to see how Gitmo is closed by January of 2010.
