Gude thinks Obama will tweak -- not trash -- the Bush definition of enemy combatant and narrow it. ''It would be a mistake to throw away the entire concept of military detention,'' he said.

While serving in the Senate, Obama said he wanted Guantánamo captives tried either as alleged terrorists in federal court or as accused war criminals in courts martial.

But one hotly debated issue is whether as president Obama should also set up a National Security Court to review cases of captives considered not competent to stand trial or for whom there is insufficient evidence to convict.

ONE POSSIBILITY

Georgetown law professor Neal Katyal, who persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court that the first Bush tribunals were unconstitutional, envisions ``a system staffed by federal judges, with experienced counsel on both sides, in which the government would have an ability to temporarily detain an individual.''

The idea would be to legislate strict guidelines on who could be held -- a proposal whose critics argue would not diminish charges that the U.S. government was creating rules to hide dubious confessions obtained by the CIA and military through cruel interrogations.

Moreover, opponents of the new court argue that the old courts already have procedures for classified evidence that needs to be kept secret for national security.

A case in point is the prosecution in Miami of José Padilla, once held as an enemy combatant. Like Guantánamo detainees, he was interrogated with rough techniques too tainted for a federal trial.

Prosecutors convicted him of supporting terrorism with evidence collected before he was interrogated -- pre-9/11 intelligence -- rather than the ''dirty bomb plot'' announced at his arrest.

Diplomacy, too, is part of the answer, the experts say.

The United States has been trying for years to get other countries to jail some detainees and resettle others. Chief among those are 17 Uighur, Muslim citizens of China, who have been held in legal limbo since 2002. U.S. policymakers want other countries to give them asylum. Unclear is whether the United States has sweetened the pot sufficiently -- or has so alienated its allies that they will no longer help.

Predicts retired Navy Rear Adm. John Hutson, a law school dean who has criticized U.S. detention policy: ``You say with conviction that you are going to close Guantánamo and you open up diplomatic channels.''

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