Key Democrats Would Let Guantanamo Detainees Be Tried in U.S.

Key Democratic lawmakers agreed Wednesday to allow detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to be transferred to the United States for trial, removing one of several hurdles the administration must clear to meet its January deadline for closing the military prison.

Left unresolved was whether the administration could also hold detainees indefinitely in this country without charging them.

House and Senate Democrats who are negotiating the defense authorization bill included language that would prohibit only the "release" of detainees in the United States, leaving other options on the table. A separate conference on the homeland security appropriations bill included more restrictive language, allowing transfer to this country only for prosecution.

All the measures must still be voted on by the full House and Senate, and each chamber has bipartisan opposition to closing the Guantanamo Bay facility. The House voted in a nonbinding resolution last week to block the transfer of any detainees to the United States for any reason.

Administration officials have been lobbying lawmakers not to restrict their options, but their plans face intense opposition.

More than two dozen retired senior military officers, as well as several retired intelligence and law enforcement officials, sent a letter to President Obama and every member of Congress on Wednesday to warn that bringing detainees to the United States "would threaten national security and public safety."

"Prisoners transferred to U.S. prisons would turn those prisons -- and the nearby civilian populations -- into high-probability terrorist targets," the letter said. "Based on past experience in Guantanamo, they would also expose prison staff to unique threats, physical risks and legal liabilities."

Late last month, another group of retired generals and admirals held a forum on Capitol Hill to argue the opposite.

Of the 223 detainees still at Guantanamo Bay, approximately 140 could be transferred to the United States -- at least 40 to face trial and up to 100 others whom the administration is considering holding in prolonged detention.

The Justice Department, after leading a review of each case, has recommended that the remaining detainees be repatriated or resettled in third countries.

Teams of federal and military prosecutors are now deciding which of the 40 trial cases should be sent to federal court and which to military commissions. Administration officials said review teams are also going over the files of approximately 100 detainees for a second time, but they acknowledge that while some of those prisoners may be recommended for prosecution or transfer abroad, a majority will be held in some kind of prolonged detention.

Such a system is likely to prove deeply controversial with human rights groups, but administration officials have said that some detainees cannot be prosecuted but are too dangerous to release.

The conference report on the defense authorization bill also contains the Military Commissions Act of 2009, replacing the 2006 act. Among its major provisions, the act bans the use in military tribunals of statements obtained from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; tightens the use of hearsay; and entitles defendants to use witnesses and other evidence as they would in federal court.