President Barack Obama. Photo: ZOA.org.

New York Times – As President Obama approaches his final year in power, a political impasse over the Guantánamo prison appears increasingly likely to force him to choose between two politically unsavory options: Invoke executive power to relocate the remaining detainees in defiance of a statute, or allow history to say he never fulfilled his promise to shutter the prison.

While the administration is slowly whittling down the population of those deemed a lower risk — including the transfer Friday of a prominent prisoner, Shaker Aamer, to Britain — its plan also calls for moving at least five dozen higher-level detainees to a prison on domestic soil. But statute bars that move, and the Republican-controlled Congress has shown little interest in revoking it. Mr. Obama vetoed a defense bill on Oct. 22 in part because it kept the restriction.

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