WASHINGTON — Looking to breathe life into President Barack Obama’s stalled pledge to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, White House advisers are inching toward recommending military trials for alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four alleged henchmen.
Attorney General Eric Holder’s original plan to try them in a civilian court in New York City met with criticism so fierce that it threatened to derail Obama’s promise to shut the U.S. military’s Cuban prison.
As difficult as the politics are concerning how and where to try the most notorious terrorism suspect in U.S. custody, that is only one step toward the even more fraught and complicated goal of closing Guantanamo, where Mohammed and nearly 200 other detainees remain.
Holder decided in November to transfer Mohammed and four other alleged Sept. 11 terrorists from Guantanamo to New York City for civilian trials. City officials initially embraced the idea.
But they later reversed themselves, citing the enormous costs, security and logistics of hosting a 9/11 trial — making things awkward for the Obama administration.
The drumbeat of policy criticism made it nearly impossible for the White House to hold on to Holder’s decision without review. That review is not finished, so no new recommendation is yet before the president.
A decision is not expected for weeks, said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss private deliberations.
But the recommendation almost certainly will be for a switch to a military process for the five accused men, said administration officials.
The reason for the probable reversal is simple: The more the trial controversy spun out of control, the harder it was becoming to make progress on other, already difficult issues crucial to closing Guantanamo, such as securing funding from Congress for the closure, arranging a replacement facility in the United States and planning other trials.
White House officials now see the Mohammed trial decision as the key to unlocking those logjams.
