House-Senate Panel Offers Plan for Gitmo Detainees

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http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/10/07/us/politics/AP-US-Congress-Guantanamo-Bay.html?_r=1

In a partial victory for President Obama's troubled bid to close the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, key congressional negotiators adopted a plan Wednesday to permit terror suspects held there to continue to be transferred into the United States to face trial.

The House-Senate compromise was reached by Democratic negotiators on a $42.8 billion homeland security appropriations bill. It mostly tracks current restrictions put in place in June and is similar to a version backed by Republicans earlier in the year that allowed detainees to be transferred to U.S. soil for trial.

Now, Republicans are pressing for an absolute ban on transfers of Guantanamo detainees into the U.S.

The move sets up a clash with Republicans and, potentially, a difficult vote for dozens of House Democrats, who only last week voted in favor of a GOP plan to block any detainee transfers into the U.S. That vote came on a nonbinding motion, but Wednesday's compromise would carry the force of law for the budget year that began Oct. 1.