The Hill News

President Obama conceded Friday that he's "fallen short" of his campaign pledge to close a detention facility for suspected terrorists in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Obama blamed politics for having slowed the closure of the prison at a U.S. naval base until well past the January deadline that the president had imposed on himself shortly after taking office.

"We have succeeded on delivering on a lot of campaign promises that we've made," he said at a press conference at the White House. "One where we've fallen short is closing Guantanamo."

Obama signed an executive order to require the closure of the Guantanamo prison within a year shortly after taking office. The January 2010 deadline to shutter the facility came and went after many lawmakers, mostly Republicans and some Democrats, protested the idea of relocating the terrorist suspects to prisons in the continental United States.

"It's not for lack of trying. It's because the politics of it are difficult," Obama said, adding later: "And people, understandably, are fearful."

The administration also has not followed through on its plans to try top terror suspects in civilian, criminal courts. Attorney General Eric Holder had announced plans to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other top ! suspects from within al Qaeda in Manhattan, near the site of the 9/11 attacks.

The administration and Holder have since backed off those plans after facing a political backlash from members of both parties.