"I'd like to close Guantanamo," Mr Bush said. "But I also recognise that we're holding some people that are darned dangerous, and that we'd better have a plan to deal with them in our courts."
"No question, Guantanamo sends, you know, a signal to some of our friends -- provides an excuse, for example, to say, 'The United States is not upholding the values that they're trying (to) encourage other countries to adhere to.'"
Mr Bush said that the United States would uphold its laws and that he hoped that detainees who cannot be repatriated will be tried in US military courts.
The US administration is waiting for the Supreme Court to make a decision in on the legality of military tribunals being held at Guantanamo. The Supreme Court ruling is imminent.
His comments, made during a press conference on his recent visit to Iraq, came as a new controversy erupted over journalists who were forced to leave the US base.
The journalists were looking into the suicide of three that triggered a new international row over the jail.
Media ‘expelled’
Meanwhile the US military faced protests from four American journalists who say they were ordered to leave Guantanamo Bay.
The Charlotte Observer newspaper said its photographer and reporter were "expelled" along with journalists from the Miami Herald and Los Angeles Times.
The Observer said the reporters received an email message which quoted a directive from Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordering them to leave on the first plane to Miami today.
The US Defence Department denied the four had been expelled, but a spokesman, Lieutenant Commander JD Gordon admitted they were asked to leave.
"They had no purpose to be there. They are already there longer than they needed to be and they left," he said.
Beckett to consider Hicks case
European governments, a UN human rights panel and various rights groups have called on the United States to shut down Guantanamo.
Opponents of the camp have stepped up criticism since three suicides of inmates last Saturday.
There are about 460 inmates at the camp, most of whom have been held there as "enemy combatants" since early 2002 without charge or access to a lawyer.
Among them is Australian David Hicks. Britain's Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, hold told the High Court she will consider Hicks’ case and his bid for British citizenship.
Judge Andrew Collins accepted an assurance from the government that the matter would be presented to Ms Beckett on Friday for her to consider "whether, and if so what, representations should be made to the US government in relation to Mr Hicks".
Government lawyers said: "The Foreign and Commonwealth Office accepts that it will be appropriate for the secretary of state to approach consideration of that question on the footing that she is dealing with the case of someone entitled to be registered as a British citizen".