Remember that proposal to transfer Guantanamo Bay detainees to the vacant prison in Thomson? It faces a big hurdle tomorrow. Buried in a FY 2011 budget request (H.R. 5136) for the costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is a $350 million "transfer" fund that would permit the Obama administration to shutter the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and move inmates to Illinois. Tomorrow, the House Armed Services Committee will mark up that appropriation bill. If the Thomson fund survives, Spencer Ackerman says there's a good chance the full House will approve it next week.

Left unsolved, however, is what to do with those detainees that might ultimately be transferred. That's a question far more important than where they rest their heads at night.