Yesterday the Senate followed the House in approving the transfer of terror suspects facing trial from Guantanamo Bay to prisons inside the United States. This bill, which will now go to the White House for signage, makes it much easier for Obama to close the prison camp which has been the subject of international condemnation and controversy. But will this enable the Administration to do so by the self-imposed deadline of one year after taking office?

The current commander at Guantanamo says that he’d only need ten days to carry out that order, according to a piece in the Miami Herald.

Navy Rear Adm. Tom Copeman told The Miami Herald and Fox News in an interview that his 2,100-member team of guards and other support staff can meet President Barack Obama’s Jan. 22 closure deadline right through the eighth anniversary of the establishment of the controversial prison camps.

“If they say on Jan. 12, ‘Move them out,’ we can meet the deadline,” he said, “given the proper amount of logistical support.”

He ticked off such requirements as enough airplanes to move them elsewhere and ferry runs across the bay that separates the prison camps from the Navy base landing strip where C-17 Globemaster aircraft shuttle the captives away.

Given this endorsement of such a narrow timeline, there’s little standing in the way of the White House from the standpoint of logistics to remove the remaining 221 prisoners from the naval base. It’s only a matter of getting the political backing, which the Congress has now given them.