In his first news conference as an administration official, National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair
suggested on March 26 that Gitmo detainees may soon be coming to a Social Services agency near you:
During his news conference, Blair also said the Obama administration is still wrestling with what to do with the remaining 240 detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, which the president has ordered closed
Some of the detainees, deemed non-threatening, may be released into the United States as free men, Blair confirmed.
That would happen when they can't be returned to their home countries, because the governments either won't take them or the U.S. fears they will be abused or tortured. That is the case with 17 Uighers (WEE'-gurz), Chinese Muslim separatists who were cleared for release from the jail long ago. The U.S. can't find a country willing to take them, and it will not turn them over to China.
Blair said the former prisoners would have get some sort of assistance to start their new lives in the United States.
"We can't put them out on the street," he said.
Blair also said the administration has abandoned waterboarding, but is considering other, unspecified "enhanced interrogation techniques."
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