More Days for Guantanamo Bay

Don't expect to see the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba closed anytime soon. Despite his plan to shut down the prison completely, President Obama decided today that the doors to the prison would remain open and military trials could resume. In lieu of the shut down, the Administration promises changes to the treatment of detainees, including evaluations every three year to determine the detainees' threat to the States as well as more strict torture bans. 
From the Times:

Administration officials insisted that Mr. Obama had not retreated from his pledge to close Guantánamo Bay, despite difficulties in transferring prisoners or trying them in federal courts. It has released detainees to their home countries and to other countries ranging from Germany to Palau, and a senior official said that process would continue.

“We’ve done a lot of leg work in the service of closing Guantánamo Bay,” said a senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the administration’s internal deliberations.

The new procedures for military commissions guarantee detainees access to a legal representative as well as access to broader range of classified information, which the detainee’s representative can use to argue his client’s case before the review board.

The administration also said it would ask for Senate approval to sign on to two additional protocols of the Geneva Conventions governing humane treatment and fair trials for prisoners held in wartime. “We have raised the bar in terms of the kind of treatment we’re committed to providing,” said another administration official.

Since the beginning of the Obama administration, the Defense Department has transferred 67 detainees from Guantánamo Bay to 24 different destinations, including the transfer of 40 detainees to third countries, according to government figures. But the active status of Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen, the home of the largest remaining group of detainees, has dissuaded the administration from sending prisoners there. And most countries have agreed to accept only tiny numbers of Guantánamo detainees.

Today’s total of 172 detainees is down from 242 when Mr. Obama entered office. About 500 detainees were released by the Bush administration.