Marathon Pundit: Obama administration panel misses Gitmo relocation deadline

Blogging fron San Francisco.

Barack Obama was president for one day when he issued an executive order calling for the closing of the Guantánamo Bay terrorist detention facility. He didn't have a plan then as to what do to with the inmates there, and the New York Times is reporting that he still doesn't.

An Obama administration panel will miss a Tuesday deadline to report on its efforts to meet President Obama's directive to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, by January, administration officials said on Monday.

The officials said that a task force reviewing detention policy would need another six months to complete its report and a second group, reviewing interrogation policy, would need two more months to finish its report to Mr. Obama.

Senior administration officials said at a briefing for reporters that the missed deadlines did not mean the administration was bogged down in its effort to close the prison, which now holds 229 men suspected of terrorism.

Still, the missed deadlines seemed to underscore the gravity and complexity of the legal, political and policy problems confronting the administration as it tries to put into place new interrogation rules and figure out what to do with the detainees.