WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates has asked his staff to draw up a plan for closing the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba should President-elect Barack Obama order a shutdown, a Pentagon spokesman said.

Gates, who will stay on at the Pentagon under Obama, wants to have a plan in hand in case the new president opts for a quick closure of the detention facility, spokesman Geoff Morrell said today at a press briefing.

He has asked his team for a proposal on how to shut it down, Morrell said.

During the presidential campaign, Obama said the facility for detaining terrorist suspects should be closed because of widespread international condemnation of it and complaints of prisoner abuse there.

Gates, in March 2007 congressional testimony, first signaled his willingness to close Guantánamo Bay -- so long as U.S. interests were protected. This year he suggested that legislation would probably be necessary to balance the need to close the facility with protecting U.S. citizens.

Morrell said Gates asked for a proposal that addresses what would be required specifically to close it and move the detainees from the facility while at the same time protecting the American people from these very dangerous characters.

Gates' motivation for requesting the review was two-fold, Morrell said.

Not just that he believes closure is the right thing but that the president-elect has made it perfectly clear he wishes to address this issue early on, so the secretary wants to be prepared to assist him to figure out a solution to problem, Morrell said.

The facility opened in 2002 and about 250 men are now held there.

Obama's transition team is studying the option of suspending the military commissions convened by the Bush administration to try some Guantánamo detainees for alleged war crimes, according to military lawyers who spoke with members of the president-elect's team.

Such a suspension would allow for a case-by-case review of the 19 detainees facing war-crimes charges, said the military lawyers, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Obama criticized the military commissions during the presidential campaign. He has called for trying the detainees in either federal court or military courts-martial.

Military prosecutors have sought the death penalty against Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and four other co-defendants. Last week, the five offered to plead guilty at a hearing at Guantánamo Bay.

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