Lawmakers work on shutting down Guantanamo facility

July 9, 2007
Lawmakers work on shutting down Guantanamo facility

WASHINGTON — Members of Congress plan to push measures to stop funding for the Guantanamo Bay detention center and grant new legal rights to detainees when Congress returns this week.

"As long as Guantanamo stays open, it undermines our defining principles as a nation of equal justice under law," said Rep Jim Moran, D-Va., author of a funding proposal that would give the Bush administration six months to close the Cuban facility.

The Bush administration wants to close the 51/2-year-old camp if authorities can keep holding dangerous detainees who "should never be released" or put on trial, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said June 29.