Gitmo Detention Center Likely To Close

The days the detention center at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, Cuba, will remain open are numbered. But while President Obama intends to fulfill a campaign promise to close it, questions about what to do with the detainees – all held there under the presumption that they may have committed acts against the U.S. during the war on terror. Recently, Judge Susan J. Crawford, the convening authority for the military tribunals, cast the Gitmo facility’s fate into further doubt when she determined that one of the detainees was tortured. News reports say Obama ordered a 120-daysuspension of all legal proceedings against detainees beginning Jan. 21, the day after he assumed office. In an interview with CBS News two months, ago, Benjamin Wittes, a legal affairs expert with the Brookings Institution in Washington, outlined three possible future scenarios. Gitmo could close but the tribunals would remain functional; the government could create a new, special avenue to review detainees’ cases; or they could be transferred to federal and military prisons while prosecutors quickly determine whether to try them in court or set them free.