The New York Times reports that the Obama administration’s “fitful effort to shut down” the prison at Guantanamo Bay “is collapsing again.”  

“Ashton B. Carter, in his first six months as defense secretary, has yet to make a decision on any newly proposed deals to transfer individual detainees. His delay, which echoes a pattern last year by his predecessor, Chuck Hagel, is generating mounting concern in the White House and State Department… The law effectively vests final power in the defense secretary and makes him personally accountable if something goes wrong.”  

“Its plan has been to transfer all lower­level detainees, while bringing those deemed too dangerous for release to a military prison on domestic soil. Of the latter group, some would be prosecuted while the rest would be held as wartime prisoners, with periodic parole­like reviews. That plan has previously failed to persuade skeptics of Mr. Obama’s Guantánamo policy, particularly in the House.”