Party blow to Obama over Gitmo

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama's promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison suffered a blow when his allies in the Senate said they would refuse to finance the move until the administration delivers a satisfactory plan for what to do with the detainees there.

As the Senate took up Obama's request for money for military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Democrats reversed course on Tuesday and said they would deny the request for $80 million for the Justice and Defense departments to relocate the 240 detainees at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They would also indefinitely bar the government from transferring any of the facility's prisoners into the United States, though the ban could be relaxed in subsequent legislation.

A vote was expected yesterday on an amendment by Senators Daniel Inouye, a Hawaii Democrat, and James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, that would put the restrictions in the war-funding measure.