Factbox: Obama Outlines Steps Toward Closing Guantanamo Prison

Following are some facts about the detention operation at the U.S. Naval base in eastern Cuba:

* The United States set up the prison after U.S.-led forces invaded Afghanistan in pursuit the al Qaeda network behind the hijacked plane attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, the Pentagon and rural Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001.

* Upon taking office in 2009, Obama ordered the detention operation at Guantanamo Bay closed by January 2010 but missed the deadline, partly because Congress imposed tough restrictions on where prisoners could be transferred. Repatriation of prisoners was not a policy viewed sympathetically by many Americans, even though the vast majority of the 166 inmates still at the prison have been held for more than a decade without charge.

* The first 20 prisoners arrived on January 11, 2002. They and other early arrivals were held at "Camp X-Ray," in chain-link wire cages that have long since been replaced by modern prison buildings. The prison has held a total of 779 foreign captives. Those who remain are from 23 nations and range in age from about 26 to 65.

* They include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 plot, and Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, who is accused of orchestrating a bombing that killed 17 U.S. sailors aboard the USS Cole off Yemen in 2000. They also include low-level foot soldiers cleared for release by U.S. military and intelligence officials, and members of China's Uighur minority who were cleared years ago by a U.S. federal court.

* The ongoing tribunals at Guantanamo were authorized by President George W. Bush under rules that were later revised by the Obama administration. But only seven cases have been completed in 11 years, and convictions in two of those were overturned on appeal.

* Almost two-thirds of the Guantanamo prisoners - 103 of them - are taking part in a hunger strike to protest the failure to resolve their fate. With the fast now in its fourth month, 32 captives have lost so much weight that medics are keeping them alive by force-feeding them liquid nutrients through tubes inserted in their noses and down into their stomachs.

* Obama said on Thursday he had lifted a moratorium on repatriating prisoners to Yemen. He suspended transfers there in 2010 due to reports that an al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen was behind a failed attempt to blow up a U.S. airplane on Christmas Day 2009. A total of 86 Guantanamo prisoners have been cleared for release or transfer, 56 of them from Yemen, but Obama did not indicate when those Yemenis would go home.

* Obama also urged Congress to lift a ban on transferring Guantanamo prisoners to the United States and asked the Defense Department to designate a U.S. site to hold military tribunals for those facing charges.

* Nine prisoners have so far died at Guantanamo. Seven deaths were classified as suicides, mainly by hanging, and two were attributed to natural causes, namely colon cancer and heart attack.

* Many detainees have said they were tortured at Guantanamo. The U.S. government has acknowledged that interrogators used now-banned techniques that included sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures and loud music. Prisoners were also chained in painful "stress positions." The CIA admitted using the simulated drowning technique known as "waterboarding" on three of the captives who were held at secret prisons and then transferred to Guantanamo.

* The United States spends $150 million a year to run the Guantanamo prison, or about $900,000 a year per prisoner, and the Defense Department has asked for some $200 million more to replace worn-out buildings that were meant to be temporary. By comparison, super-maximum security prisons in the United States spend $60,000 to $70,000 a year to house each inmate. Guantanamo costs are high in part because of the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba, which forces the military to import food, fuel and supplies to the base from the United States.

(Reporting by Jane Sutton; Editing by David Brunnstrom)

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Analysis of news: in the second debate, Obama strikes again

President Obama, who concluded that he was "too polite" in his first debate with Mitt Romney, ensured no say that after their second. He broke off, he scolded, he filibustered, he shook his head.

He tried to talk the right over Mr. Romney, who tried to talk over him back. President, who waited patiently on his trip last time around forced its way into Mr. Romney time this time. At one point he squared Mr. Romney face to face, almost chest to chest, in the middle of the stage, as if they were in a ring of roos.

"The Governor Romney said just not true."

"Not true, Governor Romney, not true."

"What you say is simply not true."

For a President who is a threat on the edge of a single expression, could make a stronger case at Hofstra University on Long Iceland Tuesday night could hardly have been more compelling. Thirteen days after the presidential election, he took decency to a Xanax extreme, he tucked away a dinner of steak and potatoes and then went out on stage with lots of red meat for eager supporters.

If it decisively want to redirect the course of the campaign is still visible, but the President emerged from the encounter have settled nerves within his panicky party and claim a new chance to frame the race with just three weeks left.

Heading into the evening, said the Obama camp that he needed at least a draw to turn turmoil over the first debate and running some of the potential drama from the final meeting on Monday. But the risk was, of course, that a confrontation could turn very happy swing voters he covets.

Strategy on Tuesday evening was clear: undercut Mr. Romney character and credibility by portraying him as lying about his true views on issues like taxes and abortion. Mr. Obama questioned again and again about the man on stage with him was the same "serious conservative" candidate that time right in the Republican primary election.

He painted Mr. Romney as a tool of big oil, which is soft on China, hard on immigrants, political rough on Libya and hypocritical on guns and energy. He inserted many of the attack lines that went unused in Denver, after Mr. Romney business record, his personal income taxes and are considered in the final minutes of debate, his comments about 47 percent of Americans he once too dependent on the Government.

"Governor Romney has a five-point plan," charged Mr. Obama. "He has a one-point plan" which is to help the rich, he said.

He mocked Mr. Romney, noting that he once closed a coal plant as Governor of Massachusetts. "Now suddenly you are a great champion of coal," he said.

As for trade, he said, "Governor, you are the last person who will get tough on China."

And he pressed Mr. Romney for not revealing how he would pay for his tax and deficit reduction targets. "We have not heard from the Governor any specifics beyond big bird and eliminate funding for planned parenthood," he said.

Mr. Romney held its own and gave as good as he got, presenting Mr. Obama as a failed President who has stacked on trillions of dollars of debt, leaving millions of Americans without work, security for American personnel in Libya, done nothing to reform entitlement programs bungled and deserted a middle class "crushed under the policies of a President who does not understand what it takes to get the economy working again."

But it was Mr. Obama who was the central storyline of the night, his performance, comes across as a striking contrast to the, his first face-off with Mr. Romney. In the days leading to Tuesday night encounter, Mr. Obama huddled in a Virginia resort with advisers to practice a more aggressive approach, without which one way or another referenced illegitimate or passage over a line of presidential dignity. It was a line he would stride up to several times during more than 90 minutes, and some would argue that he slipped over it. at times.

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Obama and Romney turn up the temperature in their second debate

 Second presidential debate: full Video: The second presidential debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney were in a town hall format at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y.

President Obama and Mitt Romney engaged Tuesday in one of the most intensive clashes in a televised presidential election debate with the tension between them growing into the disruption, personal air disaster and accusations of lying as they parried over the last four years under Mr. Obama and what the next four would look like under a President Romney.

Follow with this interactive replay of the second debate, fact-checking, and graphics to take a closer look at attacks and allegations that President Obama and Mitt Romney.

Hour Cast | Presidential debate analysisa one-stop destination for the latest political news — from The Times and other top sources. Plus opinion polls, campaign data and video.

President Obama and Mitt Romney, his Republican challenger, answered questions from the audience in town hall-style debate mode generated by Candy Crowley, right, of CNN. More photos»

Compete for a shrinking sliver of the uncertain voters, many of them women, their engagements, at times borders against physical as they circle each other or bounded from their seats, while the other talked, sometimes more intention to argue than to deal with the issues of jobs, taxes, energy, immigration and a host of other issues.

Mr. Obama, criticised by his own party for a lackluster debate performance two weeks ago, this time pushing an attack that allowed him to often dictate the terms of the debate. But an unbowed Mr. Romney was there to meet him each time, and seemed enthusiastic about the opportunity to challenge a sitting President.

Mr. Obama assertive posture may well have stopped the clamor of concern from supporters, who had weighed on his campaign of three weeks and one more debate to go before the elections.

The President's broadsides started with a criticism of Mr. Romney for his opposition to his administration in its first reply automobile bailout — "Governor Romney said, let us go bankrupt Detroit" — and ended more than 90 minutes later with an attack on Mr. Romney taped secretly comments on "47 percent" of Americans who he said do not take responsibility for their own lives.

"When he said behind closed doors that 47 percent of the country consider themselves victims who refuses personal responsibility — think about who he was talking about," said the President at the end of the debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y.

It was as if another highly charged President had taken the scene rather than the reticent, seeming disconnected candidate who turned out to meet Mr. Romney in their first debate two weeks ago.

Mr. Romney remained acutely focused on Mr. Obamas record of it all, said that the President had failed to deliver what he promised in his 2008 campaign and arguing repeatedly and vigorously, "we just can't afford four more years like the last four years."

He credited Mr. Obama for being "high as a speaker." and describes his vision But then he brought down the ultimate hammer in a challenge to an incumbent: "it is wonderful, unless we have a record to look at. And that record shows he just could not cut the deficit, putting in place reforms of Medicare and Social Security to maintain them, to get us the rising income we need. "

Two took pains to fashion their arguments against female voters, with the debate seems at times directed completely on them. Mr. Obama cited Mr. Romney pledge to cut government funding for planned parenthood at least four times Mr. Romney repeatedly mentioned, under Mr. Obama: "there are three and a half million more women living in poverty today than when the President took office. We need to live that way. "

And Mr. Romney tried to broaden its appeal to women, to soften its tone on reproductive issues, says: "every woman in the United States should have access to contraception."

Stressing his record of diversity as Governor based on his own recruitment, he said, "I brought us across the binders full of women."

It is a bit of conventional wisdom that uncertain voters seeking comity in their leaders. There was none of this Tuesday.

At times back and was personal in small ways. The effective tax rate to 14 percent, to Mr. Romney paid personally have already invoked Mr. Obama said Mr. Romney investments in Chinese companies. Then asked Mr. Romney, if Mr. Obama had looked at its own pension for its investments.

"I don't look at my pension," said Mr. Obama. "It is not as big as yours."

But at other times, the verbal sparring took on a deeper, emotional resonance, as when Mr. Romney suggested that the Administration was deliberately misleading in his changing explanations for the attack on the u.s. mission in Benghazi, Libya, which resulted in the American Ambassador, j. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans who died.

"The suggestion that anyone in my team, about the secretary of state, our UN Ambassador, would someone on my team play politics or mislead when we lost four of our own, Governor, is offensive," Mr. Obama said, standing and looking intently at his opponent. "It is not what we do. It is not what I am doing as President. "

Mr. Obama noted that he had gone to the Rose Garden on the day after the attack saying, "it was an act of terrorism".

Mr. Romney argued that Mr. Obama had not said that until 14 days later to ask the moderator, Candy Crowley of CNN, to interject, "he did actually, sir." Mr. Obama interjected with a hint of anger, "you can say that a little louder, Candy?" (She said Mr. Romney broader point about changing explanations were "right.")

Vitriol that moment through the campaign for months, in tv ads and dueling speeches played on exceptionally close area for much of the 90-minute debate.

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Obama and Romney focuses on efforts to Woo women

With some polls offers sporadic evidence that Mr. Romney wins support among women in the last weeks of the campaign, the President seized every opportunity under their face-off Hofstra University on Long Iceland to argue that Mr. Romney, the Republican candidate, would eliminate funding for women's health services, block access to contraception, against equal pay and undermine the economic recovery for families where women are the breadwinners.

"This is not just a women's issue," said Mr. Obama during an Exchange on equal pay for women in the workplace. "This is a problem with the family. It is a middle class issues. And that is why we have to fight for it. "

Mr. Romney tried to defend his policy as better for women, to deny Mr. Obamas accusations about contraception and insist that his record as Massachusetts Governor is one of integration and equality. Even as the debate concluded, released Mr. Romney's campaign, a television ad stresses that he is not opposed to contraception and believe abortion should be legal in some cases.

"Turns out, Romney not against contraception," says a woman in the advertisement. "In fact, he believes abortion should be allowed in cases of rape, incest or to save a mother's life."

But Mr. Romney rambling description of his efforts to recruit women into his administration as Governor of Massachusetts was an instant Internet sensation when he said he had "all the binders full of women", he considered jobs in his Cabinet and agencies.

' I said, ' well, gosh, we can find some women who also are qualified? ' "Mr. Romney said during the debate."And so we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could have qualified to become members of our Cabinet.

Comment "binders full" became a hit on Twitter, quickly becomes a "meme" generated a mocking Tumblr page and prompts a democratic group to purchase site www.bindersfulofwomen.com. The group, American Bridge 21st Century, used it to list actions from Mr. Romney group said was the women's interest.

Appeals to women came during a debate in which Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney, who also tried to capture their bases. Mr. Obama, in particular, supplied an aggressive performance that advisers hope will give his core supporters fresh proof that the President is ready to fight for a second term.

Mr. Romney pressed his case for tax cuts, a favorite of conservatives, and remained critical of the administration account for the deadly attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, an issue that Republicans believe gives them an advantage. And Mr. Romney repeated his campaign mantra that the country cannot afford another four years like the ones Mr. Obama has led.

But there was no mistaking the focus of candidates on women. That focus has increased dramatically in the last weeks of the campaign, as the superior race has tightened nationally and in many key battleground states. Mr. Obama has long maintained a double-digit lead among women in most studies, helping him to overcome a deficit among men.

A Gallup poll this week suggested that Mr. Obamas advantage had evaporated, but other studies — and Mr. Obama's top strategists — disputed this finding.

As the debate on Tuesday made it clear that neither campaign takes aid of women. Mr. Obama, in particular, seemed eager to make the case for his policies — and criticizing Mr. Romney — after having been criticised by many high-profile women; not in the debate two weeks ago in Denver.

The President went his way several times to mention Mr. Romney pledge to eliminate funding for planned parenthood. Mr. Obama argued that not only would affect women's health services, but would be a financial burden for families in hard times.

"Millions of women all across the country, which is dependent on the planned parenthood not only contraceptive care," said Mr. Obama. "They count it for mammograms for cervical cancer screenings. There is a pocketbook issue for women and families all over the country. "

On the issue of contraception, said Mr. Obama, that Mr. Romney would allow employers to decide whether an option to provide contraception coverage in their plans for insurance, cut off by the President's health care law. Mr. Romney refused to.

"I do not believe that bureaucrats in Washington should tell someone they can use contraception or not, and I do not believe that employers should tell someone, whether they could have contraceptive care or not," said Mr. Romney, using the time from another question to try to rebut President. "Every woman in the United States should have access to contraception."

Mr. Romney sought the interests of women connected to the broader questions about the economy sluggish recovery, suggesting repeatedly that he could do better for struggling families — and particularly women — if he is in the White House.

"There are three and a half million more women living in poverty today than when the President took office," said Mr. Romney. "We need to live that way. We can get this economy going again. "

But it was a matter of equal pay for women, called the most memorable exchanges of the debate. Mr. Obama focused on passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act — the first bill he signed as President — making it easier for women to sue if they suspect they will not be paid fairly.

"So we laid there," said Mr. Obama. "And it is an example of the kind of advocacy, we need because women are increasingly the breadwinners in the family."

When it was Mr. Romney trip, he described his efforts after being elected as Governor in order to ensure that women were well represented in its management. He said the early recommendations was mainly men, and that he pushed harder to search for qualified women to serve.

That led to "binders full" comment and a description of his willingness to be flexible on hours that his Chief of staff — a woman named Beth Myers, who is now a top adviser to his campaign — worked while children.

"She said I cannot be here until 7 or 8 at night. I need to be able to come home at 5, so I can be there — to make dinner for my children and be with them when they come home from school, "Mr. Romney explained."So we said fine, let us have a flexible schedule so you can have the hours that work for you. "

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