Obama Set to Issue Order Closing Gitmo, But Process Won’t Be Quick

Barack Obama will issue an executive order within the first week of taking office directing the closing of Guantanamo Bay, but carrying out the order could take as long as a year.

The New York Times reports that Obama will issue the executive order on his first full day in office, but the Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) said it could be a week before the order is issued. Obama is also expected to immediately suspend the military commission system used to try the detainees.

A source told the Wall Street Journal that Obama also plans to issue an order regarding interrogation methods. He does not plan to seek a new law authorizing indefinite detention of the Guantanamo detainees in the United States, a step that the Bush administration has said would be needed before closing the detention facility in Cuba, the Times says.

Transition officials are concerned that an indefinite detention law could bring the same kind of international criticism that had been directed at the Bush administration.

Closing Guantanamo is a “daunting task,” according to AP. Decisions on how to try detainees could take several months, while negotiations to transfer detainees who can be released to other countries are likely to be extensive, the Times says.

Fordham law professor Catherine Powell told the Times that she attended a meeting with transition officials last month, in which they appeared to be interested in showing international critics that the country is returning to traditional legal values.

“They are really looking for tools that we have in our existing system short of creating an indefinite detention system,” Powell told the Times.