Guantanamo Closure Meeting Was Scheduled

[Hissyspit]

Source: CNN

CNN: Guantanamo closure meeting was scheduled.

The White House is denying an AP report that senior administration officials were to hold a meeting today to discuss closing the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay. But CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux reported last night that the meeting was scheduled, and that the White House canceled it:

(T)he spokesman for the National Security Counsel, Gordon Johndroe, says that this is a meeting that is no longer the schedule for tomorrow. He won’t go into the details about why this meeting isn’t taking place. … I’m not sure whether or not (the meeting was canceled) was because of the news that broke about this story. The wording from the White House is very careful if you’ll note. They said there will not be a White House meeting tomorrow, which — there’s a little wiggle room there, in terms of whether or not there was something on the schedule for that meeting. We now know that there was something that was scheduled for tomorrow that is no longer taking place.

TRANSCRIPT:

MALVEAUX: Right, Wolf, well the spokesman for the National Security Counsel Gordon Johndroe says that this is a meeting that is no longer the schedule for tomorrow. He won’t go into the details about why this meeting isn’t taking place. But it certainly reflects a certain eagerness on the part of this administration to move forward and try to move forward as quickly as possible in shutting down this facility. The president has stated his intentions before. We know that Secretary Rice, we know that Secretary Gates, as well as many other administration officials have been pushing for this to happen. And so it is clear that these are high-level meetings that are taking place, that will take place in the future, and they have already started to talk about some real possibilities about making this happen.

BLITZER: In his earlier statement he put out, he tried to suggest the AP story was simply not true, saying there was no meeting planned for tomorrow. But now we know there was a meeting, but it’s been delayed or changed or moved. Was that because of the Associated Press story?

MALVEAUX: You know, I’m not sure whether or not it was because of the news that broke about this story. The wording from the White House is very careful if you’ll note. They said there will not be a White House meeting tomorrow, which — there’s a little wiggle room there, in terms of whether or not there was something on the schedule for that meeting. We now know that there was something that was scheduled for tomorrow that is no longer taking place.


Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/22/cnn-guantanamo-closure-meeting-was-scheduled