Obama ready to hit the ground running

US President Barack Obama is expected to make a number of key appointments and policy announcements during the course of his first day in office.

In one of the first decisions of his administration, it was announced this morning that controversial military trials at Guantanamo Bay will be suspended.

Later today, Mr Obama is due to meet high-ranking military officials to discuss Iraq. It has also been suggested that he will appoint former senator George Mitchell as Middle East envoy.

Meanwhile, the US Senate is likely to confirm the appointment of Hilary Clinton as secretary of state, while the president’s nominee for Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, will face the finance committee.

The newly sworn-in president’s first scheduled appointment this morning was a national prayer service in Washington.

But the policy changes of the new administration had already begun, with his administration requesting a halt to the trials at Guantanamo Bay.

Hours after his historic inauguration as the first black president of the United States, Mr Obama appeared to honour his vow to act over the terror-suspect holding camp in Cuba.

He has previously said he will close Guantanamo, home to widely criticised war crimes trials created by former president George Bush and Congress in 2006.

The suspension request came from the US Department of Defence, which said it was seeking a 120-day halt to the war crimes trials at the camp pending a review by Mr Obama.

The US military has charges pending against 21 men at Guantanamo and officials have said they intended to charge dozens more.

Pre-trial hearings in two cases – the trial of five men charged in the 9/11 attacks and Omar Khadr, a Canadian accused of killing a US soldier in Afghanistan – were due to take place this week.

Responding to the move, Clive Stafford Smith, the human rights lawyer who has represented Guantanamo Bay suspects, said: “It’s great, isn’t it? It isn’t much like the original executive order that President Bush issued.

“There is no doubt it will stop the practices at Guantanamo. After all, Obama is now the commander in chief.”

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme it would be possible to close Guantanamo Bay inside the new president’s first 100 days.

“It’s going to take some work but what he’s looking at, I think, here is a very clear-cut distinction between this administration and the last,” he said.

“And this (Guantanamo Bay), unlike the Iraq War for example, is something that truly is discrete and maybe can be resolved.”

Aides of Mr Obama previously suggested that the new commander-in-chief would immediately launch into the job, with a raft of policy announcements expected by the end of the week.

A reversal of Mr Bush’s ban on funding overseas organisations involved with abortion services is also expected.

Mr Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States in front of vast crowds of people in Washington yesterday, with millions more watching TV coverage around the world.

During his inaugural speech, he mentioned withdrawing troops from Iraq.

Today he is due to meet high-ranking military officials to discuss how that can be achieved.

Mr Obama is also expected to assemble a team, headed by Mr Mitchell, to look at ways of moving forward the stalled Middle East peace process.

Mr Mitchell has knowledge of brokering peace agreements. As special envoy to Northern Ireland, he helped usher in the Good Friday Agreement.