The Washington Post is reporting that White House officials are preparing long-range plans for indefinitely imprisoning suspected terrorists whom they do not want to set free or turn over to courts in the United States or other countries.

According to the paper, the Pentagon and the CIA have asked the White House to decide on a more permanent approach for potentially lifetime detentions, including for hundreds of people now in military and CIA custody whom the government does not have enough evidence to charge in courts. This policy would also affect those expected to be captured in the course of future counterterrorism operations. One proposal under review is the transfer of large numbers of Afghan, Saudi and Yemeni detainees from the military’s Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention center into new U.S.-built prisons in their home countries. The prisons would be operated by those countries. As part of a solution, the Defense Department plans to ask Congress for $25 million to build a 200-bed prison to hold detainees who are unlikely to ever go through a military tribunal for lack of evidence.

The administration considers its toughest detention problem to involve the prisoners held by the CIA. The CIA has been scurrying since the Sept. 11 attacks to find secure locations abroad where it could detain and interrogate prisoners without risk of discovery, and without having to give them access to legal proceedings. The CIA is believed to be holding most, if not all, of the top captured al Qaeda leaders, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Ramzi Binalshibh, Abu Zubaida and the lead Southeast Asia terror suspect known as Hambali.

CIA detention facilities have been located on an off-limits corner of the Bagram air base in Afghanistan, on ships at sea and on Britain’s Diego Garcia island in the Indian Ocean. The Washington Post reported last month that the CIA has also maintained a facility within the Pentagon’s Guantanamo Bay complex, though it is unclear whether it is still in use.