GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, Sept. 23 (UPI) -- The U.S. Navy officer in charge of the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said it is operating "day by day" as a search continues for an alternate site.
Rear Adm. Jeffrey Harbeson said an executive order signed by President Barack Obama remains in force even though the deadline it set for closing Guantanamo passed eight months ago, The Miami Herald reported Thursday. There are 174 prisoners still held in the camp.
Harbeson was interviewed Wednesday by reporters at the base for a pre-trial hearing for a man accused of training terrorists.
"We go day by day right now," Harbeson said. "We're operating on the Executive Order to close, and that's our guidance. So we haven't addressed that, looked at that."
Harbeson said most of the remaining inmates are held in medium-security conditions, where they eat and pray together and can take computer classes.
The thorniest problem is the fate of 48 inmates the Obama administration has decided are too dangerous to be set free but who cannot be tried.
