Obama Dealt 'Crushing Blow'

From the Sydney Morning Herald and AFP:
US President Barack Obama's plan to close the Guantanamo Bay prison by early 2010 drew a crushing Senate rejection on Wednesday, as well as a tough FBI warning against moving detainees to US soil.
The White House's Democratic allies joined Republican critics in a lopsided 90-6 vote to forbid transferring to the United States any of the 240 detainees at the facility, a global symbol of US "war on terrorism" excesses.
The legislation also rejected Obama's appeal for $US80 million ($103.39 million) to shutter the prison until he delivers a detailed plan for what to do with those held at the US naval base on Cuba's southeastern coast.
The Obama administration "should have focused on a plan for these terrorists first. Once it has one, we'll consider closing Guantanamo, but not a second sooner," said Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
FBI Director Robert Mueller dealt another blow to Obama's goal of shutting the prison by a self-imposed January 22, 2010, deadline, rejecting Democratic assertions that maximum-security US prisons can safely hold accused terrorists.
"The concerns we have about individuals who may support terrorism being in the United States run from concerns about providing financing to terrorists, radicalising others," Mueller told a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee.
The threat of Guantanamo detainees "radicalising" others would apply even if they were held in maximum-security prisons on the US mainland, the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation indicated.
Mueller's comments echoed Republican complaints and were bound to fuel what polls suggest is deep resistance from the US public to moving the detainees to the United States - a major hurdle to closing the prison.
The White House has promised Obama will reveal details of his plans for the detainees in a speech on Thursday on national security, while the Pentagon has said lawmakers were making it "exceedingly difficult" to meet his deadline.