The White House admitted Sunday it would be unable to shut Guantanamo Bay in the near future, even as it acknowledged the US naval prison camp is a rallying cry for Islamic extremists.
Nearly a year has passed since President Barack Obama's self-imposed deadline to shutter the camp, but his spokesman said legal and legislative hurdles would prevent that goal being realized any time soon.
"It's certainly not going to close in the next month. I think it's going to be a while before that prison closes," Robert Gibbs told CNN's "State of the Union" program.
Obama views Guantanamo, which conjures up images of water-boarding and other alleged torture, as a prime symbol of Bush-era war on terror excess that only serves as a recruiting tool for Al-Qaeda.
But his efforts to shut down the prison camp on the southern tip of Cuba have struggled as allies balk at taking in higher-risk inmates and prosecutions become bogged down in a legal quagmire.
Only three of the remaining 174 detainees have been formally tried and found guilty. Dozens have been cleared but no foreign ally will accept them and there is strong American opposition to any being allowed on US soil.
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