The order to close the controversial prison, a symbol of detainee abuse and detention without charge under the Republican administration of George W. Bush, fulfilled a promise Obama made during his campaign and signaled the urgency he felt about improving the US image abroad.

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during a visit to the State Department in Washington.

"We...will uphold our fundamental values as vigilantly as we protect our security. I can say without equivocation that the United States will not torture." Obama said during an afternoon visit to the State Department.

In the first of three executive orders Obama set a one-year deadline for closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and kicked off a review process to deal with relocating, releasing or prosecuting the remaining detainees.

The order halts the military commissions set up to try prisoners and requires that conditions at the facility until its closure be humane.

Deciding to close the facility is the first step in a complicated process to determine the fate of its 250 inmates, many of whom have been held for years without trial.

A senior White House official said a task force would study what to do with prisoners who could not be transferred to other countries or tried in US courts. He said "improved" military commissions could result from that study.

The European Union and human rights groups welcomed Obama's announcement, which he made in the company of 16 retired military leaders at the White House. The chance that detainees could end up on US soil drew concern from Republicans.

"It is safer for the American people to keep committed terrorists at a secure facility hundreds of miles away from our shores rather than in facilities located in or near American communities," Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama was confident the measures would make Americans safer.

"He believes that with this, we've made our security stronger," Gibbs told a briefing.

Obama's second executive order requires the CIA to close secret detention centers overseas that generated controversy in Europe and prohibits creation of such sites in the future. The White House was looking into ways to shed light on how the centers were started in the first place, the official said.

The order also mandates that interrogations of prisoners follow the US Army Field Manual guidelines, which ensures that detainees get humane treatment under the Geneva Conventions -- treaties Bush had said need not be followed.

Gibbs said Obama was confident that the less harsh techniques would not compromise US security.

The order creates a task force to study rendition policies for transferring prisoners to other countries. The senior administration official said the United States would not transfer prisoners to countries where they might be tortured.

Obama's moves, on his second full day in office, will draw a close to a chapter of the Bush era that alienated allies and enraged enemies. Bush criticised other countries for refusing to take prisoners from Guantanamo, but the Obama administration believes new diplomacy efforts will help that process.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, a holdover from the Bush administration, said things had already changed.

"One of the things that has come with the new president, as we have heard publicly from some of the European countries, is that they were willing to consider taking these (prisoners)," he told reporters. "We've not heard from those people before."

Obama also directed Gates to report back within 30 days on conditions at the prison now.

Americans are divided over closing Guantanamo, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp poll released on Wednesday. The survey, carried out before Obama's inauguration, found that 51% said it should close, while 47% said it should stay open.

The prison was established at a US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and the Bush administration's launch of the "war on terror."-- REUTERS

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