The US Bush administration is nearing a decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detainee facility and move terror suspects from the Cuba centre to military prisons in the US, it has emerged.
Senior administration officials said a consensus is building for a proposal to shut the centre and transfer detainees to one or more Defence Department facilities, including the maximum security military prison at Fort Leavenworth in the midwestern state of Kansas, where they could face trial.
President George Bush's national security and legal advisers had been scheduled to discuss the move at a meeting today, the officials said.
After news of it broke, however, the White House said the meeting would not take place that day and no decision on Guantanamo Bay's status is imminent.
"It's no longer on the schedule," said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council. "Senior officials have met on the issue in the past, and I expect they will meet on the issue in the future."
Three senior officials said the advisers are considering the proposal that includes using Fort Leavenworth or other military prisons rather than Guantanamo.
Officials familiar with the agenda of today's meeting said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defence Secretary Robert Gates, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Peter Pace and Vice President Dick Cheney are likely to attend.
It was not immediately clear whether the meeting will result in a final recommendation on Guantanamo to Mr Bush.
Previous plans to close the Guantanamo prison have run into fierce resistance from Mr Cheney, Mr Gonzales and former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
But officials said the new suggestion is gaining momentum with at least tacit support from the State and Homeland Security departments, the Pentagon, and the US intelligence directorate.
Mr Cheney's office and the Justice Department have been firmly opposed to the step, arguing that moving "unlawful" enemy combatant suspects to the United States would give them undeserved legal rights.
They could still block the proposal, but pressure to close Guantanamo has been building since a Supreme Court decision last year that found a previous system for prosecuting enemy combatants illegal and recent rulings by military judges that threw out charges against two terror suspects under a new tribunal scheme.
Agencies