"With respect to Guantanamo, it is true that I have not been able to close the darn thing because of the congressional restrictions that have been placed on us," Obama, 55, told reporters at a White House news conference.
"What is also true is we have greatly reduced the population. You now have significantly less than a hundred people there. There are some additional transfers that may be taking place over the next two months," he said.
The group has always been the biggest challenge for the US, he said.
"My strong belief and preference is that we would be much better off closing Gitmo, moving them to a different facility that was clearly governed by US jurisdiction. We'd do it a lot cheaper and just as safely," he said.
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"Keep in mind that it's not just a matter of what I'm willing to do. One of the things you discover about being President is that there are all these rules and norms and laws, and you got to pay attention to them. The people who work for you are also subject to those rules and norms. That's a piece of advice that I gave to the incoming President," he said.
Obama said he was very proud of the fact that he is leaving the administration without any major scandal.
"The reason is because we listened to the lawyers. We had a strong White House Counsel's Office. We had a strong Ethics Office. We had people in every agency whose job it was to remind people, this is how you're supposed to do things.
"It doesn't mean everybody always did everything exactly the way it's supposed to - because we got 2 million people working in the federal government, if you're including the military, and so we had to just try to institutionalise this as much as we could. And that takes a lot of work," Obama said.
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