WASHINGTON (AFP) — The White House said Monday that President Barack Obama "absolutely" believed he could still close the Guantanamo Bay terror camp by next January, despite a political storm over how to deal with detainees.
The fresh show of confidence from the White House comes as US lawmakers dig in their heels about accepting inmates on US soil from the camp in Cuba and Washington works with its allies to offload some detainees.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs was asked in his daily briefing whether Obama felt that he could still meet his self-imposed deadline of closing the camp within a year of taking office.
"Absolutely," Gibbs said.
"I think you've seen over the past few weeks progress, particularly with statements by the European Union and individual countries in their desire to share the responsibility of settling transferred detainees."
Gibbs also warned that a flurry of news stories about arrangements and legal language being considered by the administration did not mean Obama had already made decisions about how best to close the camp.
"I think there have been a number of stories about this that have tried to advance the ball on decisions that have yet to be made here.
"I don't know whether those are being litigated among different departments with different viewpoints, but no final decisions have been made here."
On Friday the White House dismissed reports that it had drafted an executive order allowing indefinite detention in the United States of some of the top terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay.
An administration official told AFP that no such draft order existed, though internal deliberations were taking place on how to deal with those inmates who could not be released or tried in civilian courts.
The source said that a task force established by the president was not due to present its recommendations until July, and that the administration would then work with Congress to find a solution to the conundrum.
The Washington Post, which reported the story, later revised its article to say the administration "is drafting" the executive order, among other changes.
In one significant comment on Monday, Gibbs said Obama would not assume that his powers as president already gave him the power to dictate a solution for the detainees.
"While the administration is considering a series of options, a range of options, none relies on legal theories that we have the inherent authority to detain people," Gibbs said.
The Justice Department has kept mum on a possible long-term detention system before internal reviews of the 229 "war on terror" detainees remaining at the US naval base in southern Cuba are set to be completed on July 21.
In a major speech in May designed to grab back control of the debate over national security policies, Obama raised the prospect of holding the most dangerous Al-Qaeda detainees indefinitely in US "super-max" prisons.
But he said any decisions on holding suspects needed to be grounded in sound legal reasoning.
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