US President Barack Obama has continued to make the case for his administration's approach to dealing with detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.

A US Army soldier on a guard tower at maximum security prison Camp Delta, at Guantanamo Naval Base in 2004. President Barack Obama acknowledged Saturday that figuring out what to do with detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba who are too dangerous to release "is going to be one of our biggest problems." [Mark Wilson/CCTV/AFP/POOL/File]

Obama says as long as a legal framework is established with proper checks and balances, many of the suspects could be tried in either a military commission or a federal court. He says some of the detainees have already been tried in federal courts, found guilty, and sent to maximum security prisons. In a 90-to-6 vote this week, the US Senate denied Obama the funds he requested to close the detention centre in Cuba. Lawmakers criticized him for failing to present a detailed plan for closing the facility.

Barack Obama said, "It's a messy situation. It's not easy. We've got a lot of people there who we should have tried earlier, but we didn't. In some cases, evidence against them has been compromised. They may be dangerous, in which case we can't release them, and so finding how to deal with that is going to be one of our biggest problems."

(CCTV May 25, 2009)