WASHINGTON  :Barack Obama plans to order the Guantanamo Bay ‘war on terror’ detention camp closed on his first full day in office, the New York Times reported Tuesday, citing people briefed by Obama transition officials.

However, it could take several months to close down the site: US officials will have to transfer some of the remaining 248 prisoners to other countries, then decide how to try the remaining suspects, the transition officials told the Times.

Obama -- who takes office on January 20 -- will likely close the site by issuing an executive order suspending the Bush administration's military commissions system for trying detainees.

The controversial camp is located at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Of the remaining Guantanamo inmates, only some 20 have been charged, including five men accused of helping organize the September 11 attacks of 2001.

Closing down Guantanamo "is more difficult than I think a lot of people realize," Obama said in an interview aired Sunday on ABC's "This Week" program.

But the incoming president was emphatic that the site would close.

"I don't want to be ambiguous about this. We are going to close Guantanamo and we are going to make sure that the procedures we set up are ones that abide by our constitution," he told ABC.

 

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