Military assessing stateside prisons for Gitmo detainees

Congress was notified Thursday that a Pentagon team was set to survey potential sites for Guantanamo Bay detainees, according to a defense official.

The reason for the visits is that “in order to finalize the remaining elements of our proposal to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, site surveys are necessary to further review potential locations for detaining a limited number of individuals in the U.S. and to best assess the costs associated with doing so”, the Pengaton’s notice said.

Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said a team was surveying the Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth on Friday and will do a similar assessment at the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston later this month. Recently, it secured commitments from a dozen countries to accept almost half of the 52 Guantanamo prisoners already cleared for transfer. “The citizens of Kansas do not support moving terrorists to the Heartland of America”.

“Only those locations that can hold detainees at a maximum security level will be considered”, Ross said.

“If legal approval for such a course of action can be won, then I think the way would be open for the Obama administration to move ahead to close Guantanamo and for President Obama to fulfill his 2008 campaign pledge to do so before he leaves office”, he stated.

Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said, “Terrorists should not be living down the road from Fort Leavenworth – home to thousands of Army soldiers and their families, as well as military personnel from across the globe who study at the Intellectual Center of the Army”. The move, coming on the same day Secretary of State John Kerry marked the re-opening of the U.S. Embassy in Cuba, has already triggered a backlash on Capitol Hill. In recent years, Republicans and Democrats alike in Congress have protested the closure of the facility in Cuba.

Senator Roberts has avidly fought the Obama Administration’s efforts to transfer Guantanamo detainees to the mainland, particularly to Ft. At one point, it held nearly 800 enemy combatants captured in the war on terror.