US President Barack Obama has said his administration may seek to transfer some al-Qaeda detainees at Guantanamo Bay to top security prisons in the US.
His remarks came in a major speech designed to grab back control of the debate over national security policies.
'We are not going to release anyone if it would endanger our national security, nor will we release detainees within the United States who endanger the American people,' Mr Obama said.
'Where demanded by justice and national security, we will seek to transfer some detainees to the same type of facilities in which we hold all manner of dangerous and violent criminals within our borders.'
President Obama has vowed to continue with his attempt to close Guantanamo Bay.
He insisted he had been right to order the closure of the detention camp in Cuba within one year, soon after taking office.
'By any measure, the costs of keeping it open far exceed the complications involved in closing it.'
Mr Obama said the camp, and related anti-terrorist policies of the Bush administration, had left his administration with an intricate political headache.
'We are cleaning up something that is quite simply - a mess - a misguided experiment that has left in its wake a flood of legal challenges.'
Mr Obama also took aim at the harsh anti-terrorist methods adopted after the 11 September attacks in 2001.
'I also believe that all too often our government made decisions based on fear rather than foresight,' Mr Obama said.
'All too often, our government trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions.'
In response, former US vice president Dick Cheney said that he stood by the anti-terrorism policies of the Bush administration and would make the same decisions again 'without hesitation'.
The US government said today that it would move a senior al-Qaeda suspect from the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba to New York to stand trial.
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian accused in the 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, will be the first former Guantanamo detainee to face trial in a civilian court in the US.
Last night, the US Senate overwhelmingly refused funding to close down the prison camp, because of lack of detail about what the president plans to do with the facility's 240 inmates.
Senators voted by 90-6 to block the $80m Mr Obama had sought for the shutdown.
The House of Representatives approved a bill last week that also rejected the President's funding request and would bar releasing detainees into the US before 30 September.
