WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama would be allowed for the next four months to order Guantanamo Bay detainees into the United States to face trial under a compromise reached Thursday by House and Senate negotiators struggling with a war-funding bill.
Transferring detainees from the U.S. detention center in Cuba would be allowed only through Sept. 30, according to top House aides, leaving until later the question of whether Guantanamo detainees tried in military trials in the United States would serve prison time in other nations if convicted or would face imprisonment in the U.S.
The short-term solution to the debate over whether detainees should be brought to the U.S. buys the administration time as it struggles to come up with a permanent solution that would allow Obama to fulfill his promise to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility by Jan. 22. The Associated Press
