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Guantánamo staffed for a 9th year -- even as it's emptied

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- The Puerto Rican National Guard is heading home soon, and soldiers from their Virgin Islands and Rhode Island counterparts are mobilizing for yearlong tours at the detention center President Barack Obama said he would shut in January.

Commanders say they can still systematically airlift all 223 detainees out of here, on time, if the Obama administration finds places to put them. But they are preparing -- for fresh forces to soon start patrolling the cell blocks, and for how to manage rebelling prisoners if a missed deadline triggers unrest.

Long before the White House begrudgingly acknowledged that it may not meet its shut-down date, the Pentagon was preparing for a longer prison-camp stay.

Obama panel interviews Muslims from China

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- In a prison camps first, the Obama administration Tuesday dispatched members of a detainee review team here to speak directly with 17 captives from China who were swept up in the war on terror and ultimately cleared of being enemies of America.

The six-member delegation included lawyers from the Justice, State and Homeland Security departments, according to U.S. military sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because only the Justice Department was allowed to officially disclose the mission.

They were to spend a minimum of one hour interviewing each of the Uighur captives, pronounced wee-gurs, who are part of China's Muslim minority and who risk religious persecution were they returned to their homeland.

U.S. sends 4 detainees to Europe; 2 Tunisians to Italy for trial

The Pentagon sent two long-held Tunisian captives from Guantánamo to trials in Italy Monday, the Obama administration's first outsourced prosecutions of detainees from the prison camps to a third country.

In all, the Defense Department downsized its detainee population at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba to 211 Monday as part of a continuing trend by Europe to assist U.S. efforts to close the camps.

A Palestinian whose identity was not immediately known was to be resettled in Hungary, that nation's first agreement to take in a detainee from the controversial prison camps that President Barack Obama wants closed in 2010.

Pentagon to shift war crimes court from sunny Cuba to chilly Illinois

The White House said Tuesday it will move its war court from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to President Barack Obama’s home state of Illinois, but officials could not say how soon or at what cost, and acknowledged they’ll need support from Congress to fully implement the transition.

Administration officials declined to estimate how many of the 210 detainees at Guantánamo would move to the Thomson Correctional Center, but White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said he “wouldn't get in the way of contradicting” an estimate by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill, of about 100 detainees.

A letter to Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and a presidential memorandum made official the federal government’s intention to acquire the largely empty maximum-security facility about 150 miles from Chicago.

Pentagon seeks lawyers for condemned camps

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- Even as the Obama administration has dropped the term ''enemy combatant'' in reshaping its war-on-terror policy, the Pentagon is inviting lawyers to apply for jobs defending its detention of 200-plus captives at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

A Pentagon official circulated a ''help wanted'' ad through the American Bar Association this month, offering between $39,407 and $130,211 a year for qualified lawyers to help answer habeas corpus petitions in the federal courts.

''Attorneys with any litigation experience are encouraged to apply,'' said the job posting, offering three-year positions. ``These positions are located in the Washington, D.C. area, with the potential for some travel to Guantánamo Bay.''