Pentagon's plan to close Guantanamo expected to come soon

The Pentagon was "very close" to sending its long-stalled closure plan of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility to the Congress, a Pentagon spokesman said on Monday.

"The team from (the Pentagon) has visited sites in South Carolina, Leavenworth, Kansas, as well as several sites in Colorado," Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis told reporters.

"Clearly the Congress's help is needed in doing this. There are legislative restrictions that prevent us from taking certain actions to plan for the movement of detainees here," Davis added.

The plan was expected to be submitted to the Congress sometime this week, though no further details were provided.

According to previous media reports which cited sources familiar with the plan, the Pentagon would provide U.S. lawmakers with options for housing inside the United States Guantanamo detainees whom the Pentagon regards as too dangerous to be transferred safely to other countries.

A total of seven prison sites were reportedly mentioned in the plan, though the Pentagon was expected to face staunch opposition from the Republican-controlled Congress, which had long been blasting U.S. President Barack Obama for putting the U.S. soil at risk by attempting to close the overseas prison and bring home dangerous detainees.

Davis stressed on Monday that the Obama administration's decision to close the Guantanamo detention center remained firm.

"We're working very closely with them (the Congress), understand(ing) that they need to be partner in this, but the president's goal remains to close the detention facility there and to end this chapter in our history," Davis said.

The plan would represent a last-gasp effort by the Obama administration to persuade opponents in the Congress to allow transfer to the U.S. soil of dozens of Guantanamo detainees, who were captured and detained without trials during the U.S. counter-terrorism campaign after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

If the Pentagon plan is rejected by the Congress, another alternative for Obama, who promised to close the notorious detention center during the 2008 election, would be to resort to his executive authority to unilaterally close the detention center.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest suggested on Wednesday in the daily briefing that Obama might try to circumvent the Congress if the Congress refuses to give the Pentagon plan the green light.

"At this point, I would not take anything off the table in terms of the president doing everything that he can to achieve this critically important national security objective," said Earnest, when asked whether Obama would act unilaterally.

Currently, there are 112 detainees still in the Guantanamo detention center, among whom 53 are eligible for transfer to other countries.

To close the detention center, the Obama administration had long sought to bring the rest of the prison population to a facility in the United States. Enditem