With No Funds for Ill. Prison, Gitmo Closure Unlikely Until '11

There’s no money to buy the Illinois prison President Obama wants to use to house detainees from the US facility at Guantanamo Bay, meaning it’s unlikely the Cuban detention center will be closed before 2011. Congress last week rejected a request for $200 million to cover the purchase of the Thomson Correctional Center—and the administration won’t likely get another chance to ask for the funds until March, the New York Times reports.

Various upgrades that’ll take at least 8 months can’t begin until the feds take control of the prison, thus pushing the move of Gitmo prisoners into 2011—more than a year after the Jan. 22, 2010, deadline Obama set when he took office.
(More Thomson, Ill. stories.)