The US Senate has denied President Barack Obama the $80 million he sought to close the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, but the White House said that would not delay plans to shut it down by early 2010.
The Senate voted 90-6 to strip the prison money from a $91.3 billion bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It also barred the Obama administration from using any funds to bring the detainees held there to US soil through September 30th.
In a setback for Obama, his fellow Democrats who control the Senate decided to dump the money after intense Republican criticism that the administration lacked a plan for the detainees and they could be moved to U.S. prisons.
The move could make it more difficult for Mr Obama to fulfill his promise to close the prison on the U.S. naval base in Cuba, one of the most visible legacies of the former Bush administration, by January 2010.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama's goal would not necessarily be held up, citing commitments by lawmakers to work with the White House.
"There are a lot of decisions that have to be made and are going to be made going forward," Mr Gibbs told reporters.
Lawmakers want to first see a plan for how to handle the detainees before doling out money to close the facility.
Mr Obama plans to address concerns about the prison and US anti-terror policies in a speech tomorrow. Rights groups have criticized him for reversing plans to end military tribunals for detainees and to release prison abuse photos.
"The president hasn't decided where some of the detainees will be transferred. Again, those are decisions that the task forces are working on and that the president will begin to lay out and discuss tomorrow," he said.
Republicans have been especially worried about bringing any of the 240 detainees at Guantanamo Bay to US prisons.
But a Pentagon official said she expected the United States will have to keep custody of some detainees as it asks other countries to take some in as well.
"I think there will be some that need to end up in the United States. I can't tell you how many, I can't tell you where," Michele Flournoy, undersecretary of defense for policy, told reporters.
Reuters