The White House plans to send some Guantanamo Bay inmates back to Yemen in a new push to close the prison, officials said President Obama will say Thursday.
The president will also announce new limits to unmanned combat drone strikes, the officials said of the program that has been central to White House efforts to combat terrorism.
Obama's 2 p.m. speech at the Defense Department's National Defense University in Washington will lay out how he intends to bring his counter-terrorism policies in line with the legal structure and values he promised four years ago this week.
In a May 21, 2009, address, the president argued U.S. national security interests needed to conform with the nation's commitment to human rights and the rule of law.
"I believe with every fiber of my being that in the long run we cannot also keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values," he said at the National Archives and Records Administration.