Speaking to reporters on the final day of his tour of the Balkans, Vice President Joe Biden acknowledged the administration still hasn’t figured out what to do with all the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay but predicted that it will still meet its deadline of closing the prison within a year. “I think so,” Biden said, when asked about the January 2010 deadline. “But, look, what the president said is that this is going to be hard. It’s like opening Pandora’s Box. We don’t know what’s inside the box.”
The Veep, who prefaced his comments by noting he’s “been out of the loop” because of his travels this week, said the White House has been going through inmates with a “fine tooth comb” briefing him and other senior officials about the prisoners by categories based on how much evidence they have or not on each individual. Asked about what the administration would do with the most dangerous prisoners, Biden said the administration is still trying to determine that. “There’s a lot of speculation (about) detainees who are a real danger who are not able to returned or tried,” Biden said. “But that (number), to the best of my knowledge, has not been established.” Echoing President Obama’s comments earlier today, Biden brushed off critics who say confining detainees to federal penitentiaries is too dangerous. “There’s a bit of a hysteria about, well, my god, these guys are so dangerous,” he said. “Go to some maximum security cells if you want to know some dangerous people. Matter of fact, it might be an awakening to them.”
Though he didn’t offer details, Biden told reporters that he talked to a foreign official during his travels this week—he’s visited Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo—about “the prospect of a detainee coming back to the region.”
