Some Dems soften on transfer of detainees

WASHINGTON (AP) — With President Barack Obama showing the way, some Senate Democrats are signaling a willingness to permit transferring suspected terrorists from Guantanamo to U.S. prisons despite a high-profile vote to the contrary.

Most notably among them is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who spent the week sending out confusing signals on just where he stood.

“We are wanting and willing to work with” the president to come up with a solution to the detainee controversy, the Nevada Democrat said Thursday — a statement that conspicuously left open the possibility that some detainees would eventually be incarcerated in U.S. prisons.

Only two days earlier, Reid had adamantly told reporters he opposed the release of any of the detainees into the United States. On Wednesday, he joined 89 other lawmakers in both parties who voted to prohibit their transfer.

The 90-6 vote also denied Obama the funds he requested to close the Navy-run detention center in Cuba, which was set up by the Bush administration and has become a highly controversial symbol of the former president’s terrorism policies.

Some Democrats grumbled that Obama’s team had left them exposed politically in the run-up to Wednesday’s vote.

Initially, Senate Democrats, who hold a majority, had hoped to finesse the issue. They drafted legislation that allowed Obama’s use of the funds to close Guantanamo after he presented a plan that outlined steps for dealing with the detainees held there.

But under significant pressure from the Republican leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and other GOP senators, Democrats backpedaled. They stripped out the funds altogether and voted with Republicans to bar the “transfer, release” or incarceration of any Guantanamo detainee in the United States.

In addition to Reid, other Democrats who voted to ban the transfer of detainees to the United States said after Obama’s speech, they are willing to consider the plan the president eventually presents.