Obama: Some Guantanamo prisoners to go to U.S.

By Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Thursday some terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo would be sent to U.S. prisons despite strong congressional opposition, as he defended his plan to close the internationally condemned detention center.

In an extraordinary counterpoint to Obama's speech, former Vice President Dick Cheney said the president's reversals of Bush-era detainee policy amounted to "recklessness cloaked in righteousness and would make the American people less safe."

Obama made his case a day after the U.S. Senate, controlled by fellow Democrats, handed him a stinging setback by blocking funds to shutter the prison until he presents a detailed plan on what to do with the 240 terrorism suspects held there.

"This is the toughest issue we will face," Obama declared in a 50-minute address at the National Archives where he said he had inherited a legal "mess" from the Bush administration that had hurt America's moral standing in the world.

Obama used a forceful defense of his revamped terrorism policies to try to wrest back control of the debate that has gripped Washington and threatens to divert his attention from his declared top priority of rescuing the ailing U.S. economy.

Obama, who succeeded Republican George W. Bush on January 20, had vowed in his first days in office to close the detention center, located at a U.S. Naval base in Cuba, within a year as part of his effort to repair America's tarnished image abroad.

His public approval rating remains high, but implementing a revamped approach on detention and interrogation of terrorism suspects has proved more difficult than his aides expected.

Seeking to calm fears that some detainees could eventually be released on U.S. soil, Obama insisted he would not authorize freeing anyone who would "endanger the American people".