Gitmo to stay open?
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| Tue, 05-19-2009 - 4:40pm |
The One has bravely declared that Gitmo is to be closed. Will our Senate obstruct? The Senates complaint that there isn't a plan, hasn't stopped massive spending in the recent past. Could something else be up?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090519/ap_on_go_co/us_congress_guantanamo
Senate Democrats won't fund Gitmo closing for now
President Barack Obama's allies in the Senate will not provide funds to close the Guantanamo Bay prison until the administration comes up with a satisfactory plan for transferring the detainees held there, top Democrats said Tuesday. And in a further break with Obama, the Senate's top Democrat said he opposes transferring any Guantanamo prisoners to the United States for their trials or to serve their sentences. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has said 50 to 100 Guantanamo detainees may be transferred to U.S. facilities.
"I can't make it any more clear," Reid said. "We will never allow terrorists to be released in the United States."
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said Obama's plan to close Guantanamo is not dead — only that the funding will have to wait until the administration devises an acceptable plan to handle the closure and transfer the detainees. Obama has promised to close the military prison by January.
"The administration has not come up with a plan at this point," said Durbin, who is the whip, or No. 2 Democrat in the Senate. He added that Democrats are likely to address the issue on later legislation. "I think Guantanamo should be closed and we have to wait for the president's direction on what happens to the detainees."
Durbin said that he could support transferring detainees to U.S. prisons. "Our prisons are filled with dangerous people, including terrorists. And not a single one has escaped," he said.
With debate looming on Obama's spending request to cover military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, says Democrats will deny the Pentagon and Justice Department $80 million to relocate Guantanamo's 240 detainees.
The administration has yet to develop a plan for what to do with the detainees, and Obama's promise to close the facility is facing strong GOP opposition.
It appears to be a tactical retreat. Once the administration develops a plan to close the facility, congressional Democrats are likely to revisit the topic, provided they are satisfied there are adequate safeguards.
Explaining the reversal, Durbin said: "The feeling was at this point we were defending the unknown. We were being asked to defend a plan that hasn't been announced. And the administration said, 'Understood. Give us time to put together that plan and we'll come to you in the next appropriations bill.'"
The developments on Capitol Hill came as the Pentagon said it still expects the prison at Guantanamo Bay to be closed by January 2010 as Obama has ordered.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters on Tuesday that he sees nothing to indicate the January 2010 deadline will be delayed.
Republicans are poised with an amendment by James Inhofe of Oklahoma that would block any of the Guantanamo detainees from coming to U.S. soil to stand trial or serve their sentences. A detainee was released to France last week, leaving 240 at Guantanamo.
"Shuttering this facility now could only serve one end: and that is to make Americans less safe than Guantanamo has," said GOP Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
"Guantanamo is the perfect place for these terrorists," McConnell said later.
House Democrats also dropped funding to close Guantanamo when producing their version of the war funding bill, which easily passed last week.
The Guantanamo controversy has roiled Washington, with most Republicans adamantly opposed to closing the prison, which mostly holds enemy combatants captured in Afghanistan. Republicans say abuses at the facility are a thing of the past.
The Senate's massive war spending measure otherwise sticks closely to Obama's request. The House version effectively exceeds Obama's request by almost $12 billion, adding $2.2 billion for foreign aid and eight C-17 cargo planes despite Defense Secretary Robert Gates' desire to cease purchases of the aircraft as part of his effort to overhaul Pentagon procurement.

That's too bad a few million $$$ prevents the rehabilitation of the US's image.
As far as the prisoners being a danger to the public is bunk. Yes right I'm terrified of men in manacles wearing orange suits.
Funds to Close Guantanamo Bay Are Rejected by Senate
Complete article at link.....
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aRhWZbPTVEus&refer=us
The U.S. Senate, in a victory for Republicans, rejected President Barack Obama’s request for funds to begin shutting down the prison for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The chamber voted 90-6 to strip $80 million for closing the facility from a war-spending bill. Republicans have complained for weeks that the administration hasn’t explained what it will do with about 240 prisoners there. Transferring them to civilian prisons in the U.S. would endanger public safety, Republicans contend. More see link above.
Judge rules on terror detainees
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8060069.stm
With the fate of detainees still up in the air, the president will try to reassure the nation that his plan to close the prison camps at Guantánamo Bay will not put U.S. citizens at risk.
President Barack Obama on Thursday will lay out a defense of his national security policies and assure Americans he won't let terrorists loose in the U.S. as he looks to ease fears about closing the detainee facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, by next January.
In his speech at the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom at the National Archives, Obama will declare that he will stand by his order to close Guantánamo by Jan. 22, 2010, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Wednesday. The venue is significant. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and Bill of Rights are on display there.
Obama also will talk about recent national security decisions that have angered human rights groups, including plans to revive and revise the terror trials by military commission and to appeal a civilian court order to release photos showing U.S. troops engaged in detainee abuse.
White House officials declined to detail what exactly the president will say about the possibility of transferring some of the 240 Guantánamo captives to federal or military prisons in the United States. Unclear also was whether Obama would address fears that the U.S. might release in the United States some captives whom judges have found unlawfully detained.
More info at link.....
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/guantanamo/story/1058380.html
Apparently Obama didn't quite understand the situation down there and what would happen if the prison were to
Guantanamo is no more secure than some of the high security prisons here in the U.S.
But there are always people who will be credulous about the security of an off-continent detention facility. Episodes like the escape of detainees at Bagram don't seem to register. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/international/asia/04escape.html
And the opposition looks to aggrandize political support. ("Republicans are poised with an amendment by James Inhofe of Oklahoma that would block any of the Guantanamo detainees from coming to U.S. soil to stand trial or serve their sentences.")
Goofballs. For them, out of sight (in Cuba) facilitates (and enables) out of mind. Much ado about a whole lot of nada.
Jabberwocka
I certainly hope that the plan is not to allow these prisoners to suddenly take up residence in the United States and live among us. I would not feel comfortable with that.
If they
No...that isn't the plan.
At least Obama has some high profile support for closing Gitmo:
Petraeus Endorses Obama's Plans To Close GITMO, End Torture
General David Petraeus said this past weekend that President Obama's decision to close down Gitmo and end harsh interrogation techniques would benefit the United States in the broader war on terror.
In an appearance on Radio Free Europe on Sunday, the man hailed by conservatives as the preeminent military figure of his generation left little room for doubt about where he stands on some of Obama's most contentious policies.
"I think, on balance, that those moves help ," said the chief of U.S. Central Command. "In fact, I have long been on record as having testified and also in helping write doctrine for interrogation techniques that are completely in line with the Geneva Convention. And as a division commander in Iraq in the early days, we put out guidance very early on to make sure that our soldiers, in fact, knew that we needed to stay within those guidelines.
"With respect to Guantanamo," Petraeus added, "I think that the closure in a responsible manner, obviously one that is certainly being worked out now by the Department of Justice -- I talked to the Attorney General the other day they have a very intensive effort ongoing to determine, indeed, what to do with the detainees who are left, how to deal with them in a legal way, and if continued incarceration is necessary -- again, how to take that forward. But doing that in a responsible manner, I think, sends an important message to the world, as does the commitment of the United States to observe the Geneva Convention when it comes to the treatment of detainees."
The remarks appear to be the first from Petraeus since the closure of Guantanamo and Bush Administration use of enhanced interrogation techniques became hot-button partisan issues. They couldn't come at a better time for Obama. The president has found himself under intense political heat after the United States Senate soundly rejected his request for funds to shut down the prison. Dueling speeches between Obama and Cheney this past Thursday, moreover, did little to tamp down the controversy over the president's release of memos depicting the legal authorization fro the use of torture.
The president got a boost on Sunday when former Secretary of State Colin Powell came to his defense on both subjects. In conducting his RFE interview, Petraeus because the second figure who garners far more respect and popularity among Republicans than Cheney to offer his backing for Obama's national security plans.