Posted on 01/14/2009 10:40:12 PM PST by Jet Jaguar
WASHINGTON — As the president-elect’s incoming administration looks at possible locations to relocate detainees at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Republican lawmakers from those districts have already begun voicing opposition to the moves.
Sources within Barack Obama’s transition team have said that an announcement on the closing of the Guantanamo detention facilities could come within hours of his inauguration. Shutting down the prison and relocating the 260-plus terrorist suspects to other locations was one of Obama’s campaign promises.
But moving those prisoners to U.S. military bases could create a distraction or possible target for future terrorist attacks, lawmakers warned this week. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., called rumored plans to use Fort Leavenworth in his district an "unwise and unsafe" idea. He invited the president-elect down to the facility, promising tours of the Army’s Command General Staff College and other training areas.
"He will find that once you see the base up close, it’s hard to show why terror suspects should be housed in Kansas," he said in a statement.
Freshman Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, R-Calif., similarly dismissed ideas that detainees could be housed at the Marine Corps base in his district.
"Camp Pendleton is a place where we train our Marines and sailors for combat," he said in a statement. "It is not a detention facility, nor should it be transformed into one."
He called plans to close the Cuba detention facility "a serious mistake," calling it a logical place to house the dangerous prisoners.
In November, Rep. Henry Brown, R-S.C., introduced legislation in Congress to prohibit the use of any federal funds to relocate detainees to the Naval Consolidated Brig in his district, noting its proximity to nearby homes, other military weapons facilities and a state airport.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has also publicly opposed the move of any Guantanamo prisoners to Charleston. In a radio interview earlier this week, Vice President Dick Cheney opposed plans to rapidly shut down the Guantanamo detention facility.
On Tuesday, White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto reiterated President Bush’s support for closing it down at some point in the future, but noted "the incredible complexity of actually closing Guantanamo."
"You do have the problem of what do you do with known and hardened and experienced terrorists," he told reporters. "Where do you put them? I would agree with the vice president that, for now, Guantanamo is the place to keep them until we can find other solutions.
as if they could block anything
Chicago has a naval base that would do nicely.
Close gitmo ... fine... just open the fence tell the scum bags that “You’re on your own!” if you want to go HOME, start SWIMMING.. and pray Allah keeps the Sharks away.
**Chicago has a naval base that would do nicely.**
They’d just look like a new Gang in town and the local kids would probably take care of them REAL FAST!!! IF not ... the bottom of Lake Michigan would work very nicely!!
I suggest moving the GITMO detainees to Chicago where they would be more comfortable with their own kind.
I wish we could find some crunchy-granola, long-haired conservative types who would lay down in front of Camp X-Ray as the bulldozers arrived at Gitmo.
Let’s hold them in a building right next to Obama’s daughter’s school.
Or we could put them in Aspen, Colorado so they can share chefs with the stars.
Is there room at the Kennedy compound?
I thought the promise was to release them, not just move them to a different location.
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