By Carol Rosenberg crosenberg@miamiherald.com
June 20, 2018 05:00 AM
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, CUBA —
Earlier this month, in a drill shrouded in secrecy, prison guards practiced for something that hasn't actually happened at Guantánamo in a decade. They rehearsed receiving a new war-on-terror detainee.
Medical evaluation? Check. Notification of the International Red Cross? Check. Assignment to a cell? Check. Security and more security. Gone are the iconic orange uniforms that made Camp X-Ray infamous. The man who played the role of new captive wore white.
Navy Rear Adm. John Ring, the prison commander, says he hasn't gotten any word that new prisoners are coming. But since President Donald Trump signed an order keeping the prison open, Ring's staff is now preparing for what spokeswoman Navy Cmdr. Anne Leanos calls an "enduring mission.”
"I have not been told we’re getting new people. I have no order to receive new people. I’ve been asked some hypothetical questions about capacities and things like that, but we are not imminently expecting anybody," Ring told reporters in early June...........................President Barack Obama's administration, which saw Guantánamo prison as a recruiting symbol for al-Qaida, sought to shut it down by moving to U.S. lockups the last of the nearly 800 post-9/11 captives seized during the George W. Bush years. Congress thwarted that ambition by forbidding the transfer of Guantánamo prisoners to the United States.
But on Jan. 30, President Donald Trump revoked Obama's closure order. So the prison leadership is now making plans for 25-35 more years of detention, said Army Col. Steve Gabavics, the guard force commander.
One thought is to hire civilian Department of Defense employees for key prison staff positions — the lawyer, spokesman, chief of staff — on minimum two-year contracts, rather than fill those roles with revolving, temporary troops. It would be more costly to taxpayers because such hires could bring families, who live in base housing and enroll their kids in the Navy base school system.
But they could provide continuity for the Army National Guard soldiers plucked from civilian lives to serve nine-month tours of duty here, without family. Congress has already given the Army $115 million to build an 868-bed barracks for the nine-month forces.
Now the admiral is proposing to more barracks for another 960 nine-month-stay prison guards..................... 
Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/guantanamo/article213231219.html#storylink=cpy
(Well at least they got Yoga mats)
