Reuters is reporting that the Obama administration is reluctantly giving up the idea that it can close the prison at Guantanamo by issuing an executive order under his authority as commander in chief. The White House has said repeatedly that Obama has not ruled out any options on the Guantanamo center, which has been used to house terrorism suspects since it was set up in 2001 following the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. Obama is eager to fulfill his 2008 campaign pledge to close the prison and could still choose to use his commander-in-chief powers, but the option is not being actively pursued, the sources said. Without executive action, the chances of closing the prison would hinge on convincing a resistant Congress to overturn a long-standing ban on bringing possibly dozens of remaining prisoners to maximum-security prisons in the United States. White House lawyers and other officials studied the option of overriding the ban but did not develop a strong...(Read Full Post)