IMPEACH BUSH

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congress should explore with the White House ways to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay while not releasing its most dangerous detainees, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday.

But a senior Republican lawmaker warned against "importing" terrorism suspects now held at the U.S. detention camp in Cuba into prisons on U.S. soil.

Democrats, who came to power in Congress in November elections, say they would like to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay and have been looking for a strategy to do so.

President George W. Bush and other administration officials have also said they would like to shutter the camp, and Gates told the House of Representatives' defense appropriations subcommittee on Thursday that this should be explored -- while ensuring some detainees would remain incarcerated for life.

But Rep. Duncan Hunter, a California Republican, said a memo circulated among members of another committee showed Democrats were considering relocating Guantanamo suspects to military jails in more than a dozen different American communities, from Kansas' Fort Leavenworth to Kentucky's Fort Knox.

"I am very distressed," Hunter declared during a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee on the future of Guantanamo. He is the top Republican on that committee and a presidential hopeful as well.

"The idea that we would import dangerous terrorists, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, into American communities is dangerous," Hunter said, referring to the al Qaeda suspect who claims to have organized the September 11 attacks on the United States.

The Democratic chairman of the Armed Services Committee said moving the prisoners to the United States was just one option had been suggested, as well as keeping Guantanamo open for "hard core detainees" who could not be released.

"Some have proposed maintaining Guantanamo as a military supermax prison for these extremely dangerous individuals," said Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri.

"Others recommend federal correctional facilities, like ADX Florence in Colorado, as the tried-and-tested alternative for them," Skelton said, referring to the high-security Supermax prison south of Denver.

Gates, speaking at the hearing on defense spending, said he favored closing Guantanamo, but that some detainees there "based on their confessions, should never be released."

"Is there a way statutorily to address the concerns about some of these people who really need to be incarcerated forever but that doesn't get them involved in a judicial system where there is the potential of them being released, frankly?" Gates said.

"I just don't know the answer," he said. "It's an area where frankly I think there needs to be some dialogue between the Congress and the administration."

The United States has faced international criticism over its continued detention of about 385 suspected al Qaeda and Taliban members at the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba.

Human rights groups and other critics have demanded the United States close Guantanamo and that detainees be charged with crimes or released.

According to Gates, some of the detainees have said they would attack the United States again if released.