Speaking today about the missed deadline for the closure of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, State Department official Daniel Fried, America’s Special Envoy for the Closure of Guantanamo, said he was “not disappointed” and remains upbeat.

US Envoy Daniel Fried

One of his first promises after taking office, President Obama pledged to have the facility closed within a year. Fried says now that he is hopeful the president will manage to close the facility by the end of his first term in office, in 2012.

Though Fried insisted his comments were not meant to be taken as a firm deadline, officials had previously speculated that the facility could not be closed until the end of 2011. Congress has repeatedly rejected funding for the closure, and the administration isn’t even going to bring it up for consideration again until the Fiscal Year 2011 budget later this year.

Even if the facility is eventually closed, the Justice Department spokesman with Fried at the conference insisted that around 50 of the 192 detainees would never be released, never be given a trial, and never even face a military tribunal. Over 100 of the detainees will be released, eventually, without trials, and some 40 others will face some sort of trial or tribunal involving actual evidence.

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