Obama faces major test in Gitmo speech

President Obama will do little to satisfy lawmakers’ hunger for a detailed plan on the closing of Guantánamo Bay when he delivers his national security speech Thursday morning.

Instead, the president will lay out the reasoning behind some of his most controversial national security decisions.

{mosads}Obama’s speech at the National Archives, which the administration is billing as a major address, will be delivered near some of the nation’s most sacred documents — the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence — and will focus on topics that have resulted in intense criticism from both the left and right in recent days.

Aside from Guantánamo Bay, the president will discuss his recent decisions to continue with military commissions and not to release photos depicting alleged abuse of detainees.

However, it’s Guantánamo Bay that is proving to be a significant thorn in the administration’s side this week as Democrats joined Republicans in overwhelmingly rejecting the $80 million Obama requested to close the facility.

The White House said the president is holding firm on his January deadline for closing the prison but lawmakers have asked for details about where the administration intends to send the detainees.

Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill say they need to hear details about where the detainees will go more than they need to hear a defense of Obama’s eyebrow-raising policy decisions.

The White House has said that some detainees may need to be moved to the United States — a move that has lawmakers concerned.

In advance of Obama’s speech, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R- Ohio) said the president “has an opportunity to outline a comprehensive strategy for keeping America safe, including how he will keep all of the terrorists at the Guantánamo prison off American soil.”

And it’s not just Republicans craving details. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) came out forcefully against housing detainees on American soil this week, and the result was a crushing 90-6 Senate vote to block the money Obama wanted to close the facility.

One senior Democratic Senate aide said Democrats are looking to Obama’s speech for some help in defending the president’s timeline for closing the facility.

“We need some cover,” the aide said. “They need to be able to demonstrate that they have a plan to deal with these detainees.”

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) echoed that concern, saying “the simple explanation is that there is not yet a plan, and what we have said is, ‘Give us a plan and then we’ll proceed with the issue of funding.’ ”

The White House indicated that kind of cover won’t be in the president’s remarks, but that Obama will instead focus on explaining those decisions he has already made.

{mosads}“I don’t expect that he’s going to hand out a 100-page plan that will have every decision made,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said.

He added: “The president will lay out the framework on many of those decisions and some of the work that has to be done between now and then to make progress in closing Guantánamo Bay.”

But Gibbs conceded that Obama knows that there are some “thorny decisions” the administration and Congress will need to make.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he is waiting to hear a concrete plan from Obama, something he thinks the president will be able to deliver.

“He just needs a reasonable plan that’s acceptable,” Kerry said. “It’s not easy, because there are some complications, but I think it’s doable.”

While Capitol Hill is looking for details, some of the president’s allies on the left will likely be listening for Obama’s rationale on both the military commissions and the detainee photos.

Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) both blasted Obama last week for those decisions, with the latter comparing Obama to President George W. Bush.

Gibbs said the president will address those issues, adding that there will be “some discussion about transparency and national security.”

By marrying the two issues like that, Gibbs might have been hinting that the president will make his case for secretive measures in the name of national security.

While Obama will look to assuage those he has angered on the left, his defense of the state-secrets provision and other controversial moves while standing a short distance from the Constitution is more likely to rub critics the wrong way.

Gibbs said this week that the speech will be similar to the one Obama gave on the economy at Georgetown University last month, bringing a number of hotly debated topics into one “basket.”

J. Taylor Rushing contributed to this article.