FBI Chief Undermines Obama's Promise to Close Guantanamo

Posted by , Agence France Presse at 12:28 PM on May 20, 2009.

FBI chief Robert Mueller Wednesday undermined President Barack Obama's plan to close the Guantanamo Bay prison by warning that detainees could fuel terrorism if transferred to U.S. soil.

"The concerns we have about individuals who may support terrorism being in the United States run from concerns about providing financing to terrorists, radicalizing others," Mueller told a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee.

The threat of Guantanamo detainees "radicalizing" others would apply even if they were held in maximum-security prisons on the U.S. mainland, the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation indicated.

Obama wants to shutter the prison camp located at a U.S. naval base on Cuba by early 2010. But his Democratic Senate allies Tuesday moved to deny the president 80 million dollars in funding for the proposal.

Obama is due to defend his approach in a speech Thursday.

But the Democrats joined Republicans who have warned for weeks that Obama lacks a plan for dealing with the facility's 240 detainees from 30 countries, and argued against imprisoning, trying or freeing any of them on U.S. soil.

Tagged as: guantanamo, fbi, barack obama, house judiciary committee, robert mueller