Obama to Keep Indefinite Detentions

The Obama administration’s long-term plan to close Guantánamo Bay and deal with war-on-terror detainees will miss its deadline this week, but has Newsweek learned what the report—which a source says will take a “few months”—will say anyway? “Three administration officials familiar with the process said the detention task force, which is jointly run by aides to Attorney General Eric Holder and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, did agree that the Obama administration should continue to claim the right to hold some Guantánamo inmates indefinitely as ‘combatants’ under the ‘laws of war,’ without charging them either in criminal courts or in military commissions. Three administration officials familiar with the process said the detention task force, which is jointly run by aides to Attorney General Eric Holder and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, did agree that the Obama administration should continue to claim the right to hold some Guantánamo inmates indefinitely as ‘combatants’ under the ‘laws of war,’ without charging them either in criminal courts or in military commissions.”