Two senior administration officials who refused to be named said late Friday that the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is unlikely to close by the administration’s deadline of January 2010.

They were still optimistic about shutting the detention facility for terrorism suspects soon but cited legal complications for the delay.

The announcement represents a blow to President Barack Obama, who signed an executive order and set the deadline with great fanfare during his first week in office.

He reaffirmed his inauguration pledge that the US does not have “to continue with a false choice between our safety and our ideals” during a signing ceremony at the White House on January 22.

The President issued the order to close the prison camp in order to “restore the standards of due process and the core constitutional values that have made this country great even in the midst of war, even in dealing with terrorism.”

(via CNN)