Obama's Guantanamo

In 2009, President Obama issues three executive orders—one ordering the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay in one year, another banning the use of controversial CIA interrogation techniques, and one ordering the review of detention policy options. Over the next two years, he announces he will revamp, rather than reject, the system of military tribunals that President Bush created to try terrorism suspects, grants its Guantanamo closing commission an extra six months to study the situation, signs a presidential memorandum ordering Attorney General Eric Holder and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to acquire the state prison in Thompson, Illinois, as the $350 million replacement for Guantanamo. (Administration officials are forced to acknowledge that closing the facility in Cuba will not occur in 2009 but will spill over into 2010, possibly even late 2010), and finally, The New York Times announces, sidelines efforts to close the Guantanamo prison, making it unlikely that President Obama will fulfill his promise to close it before his term ends in 2013.