Poll: Most favor keeping Gitmo open

WASHINGTON, March 14 (UPI) -- Most U.S. voters support a military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and military tribunal for terrorist suspects, a Rasmussen Reports survey indicates.

Just 21 percent of likely U.S. voters said they think the prison housing suspected terrorists should be closed while 58 percent said the facility should not be closed, results released Monday indicated.

In one of his first announcements, President Obama said he planned to close the Guantanamo prison camp, but political and legal complications have brought that effort to a halt. Support for Obama's plan to close the prison camp has fallen since he announced it just after taking office in January 2009 when voters were evenly divided.

Sixty percent of voters said suspected terrorists should be tried before military tribunals instead of within the U.S. court system, Rasmussen Reports said. Twenty-seven percent said they favor court trials.

Results are based on a nationwide survey of 1,000 likely voters Thursday and Friday. The margin of error is 3 percentage points.