LONDON (AP) -- The United States is "relatively close" to making decisions on what to do with an initial group of Guantanamo Bay detainees, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Sunday.Holder spoke to The Associated Press during a flight to London, the first of several stops where he will visit with European leaders to discuss terrorism, drugs, and cyber-crime. The attorney general did not say how much longer he thought it would take to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba. Before officials can meet President Barack Obama's January deadline, the U.S. must first decide which detainees to put on trial and which to release to the U.S. or other countries.
Holder said the first step is to decide how many total detainees will be set free. "We're doing these all on a rolling basis," he said. "I think we're probably relatively close to making some calls."
After eight years in which the previous Bush administration alienated European nations over issues like the Iraq war and Guantanamo Bay, the Obama administration is trying to strengthen those ties. "I don't think they're looking for as much of American leadership as a partnership," said Holder.
| Is that what they call it when they leave you holding the bag? |
Republicans in Congress say Guantanamo should remain in operation and are mobilizing to fight the release of detainees into the United States.
Against that backdrop, Holder hoped to reassure skeptical Europeans without generating too much public opposition back home. After meetings in London and Prague, the attorney general is to give a speech Wednesday night in Berlin about Guantanamo.
Austria's interior minister, Maria Fekter, has insisted her country would not take any prisoners. "If the detainees are no longer dangerous, why don't they stay in the U.S.?" she asked.
| Good point. We'll remind you of this next time you need our help. |
| Ditto to you, Germany. Sure hope the Fulda Gap doesn't need defending any time in the next century. |
In some nations are internal divisions. Germany's foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has raised the possibility his country could take detainees, arguing that the camp's closure should not fail because the prisoners have nowhere to go. But Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has said the detainees are primarily a U.S. responsibility.
Given that debate, that's all the more reason, say some, for the U.S. to release some Guantanamo prisoners in the U.S. as quickly as possible to generate good will.
| And never mind if any of them travel to Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistain to kill Western soldiers. |
Some Republicans, though, want to keep the doors bolted. "There is reason to believe (the Uighurs) are not as peaceful or as nonthreatening as the administration seems to be suggesting," said New York Rep. Peter King, the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee.
| All it takes is for one of them -- one -- to commit a crime after being released and Holder will be gone as AG. He ought to know that. |