WASHINGTON — The White House said Tuesday it
will move its war court from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to President Barack
Obama’s home state of Illinois, but officials couldn’t say how soon
or at what cost, and acknowledged they’ll need support from Congress to
fully implement the transition.
Administration officials declined to estimate how many of
the 210 detainees at Guantanamo would move to the Thomson Correctional
Center, but White House press secretaryRobert Gibbs said he
“wouldn’t get in the way of contradicting” an estimate by Sen. Richard
Durbin, D-Ill., of about 100 detainees.
A letter to Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and
a presidential memorandum made official the federal government’s intention to
acquire the largely empty maximum-security facility about 150 miles west of Chicago.
A senior White House official said in a background
briefing that the 146-acre prison was the intended site for the latest version
of the military commissions trials, meant for war-on-terror captives accused of
committing war crimes. The official also said the administration intended to
transfer any so-called indefinite detainees to the facility, which would
require congressional action.
Many Illinois officials and congressional
Democrats support the idea, but Republicans cited concerns for Americans’
safety, and human rights advocates underscored opposition to indefinite detentions
on or off U.S. soil. Others worried Obama is being rushed by the anti-war base.
The latest move comes after nearly a year of obstacles being
thrown in the path of Obama’s plans to close the military prison in southeast Cuba.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a military lawyer, agrees
with emptying Guantanamo camps “if done correctly,” but suggested the
latest development is more evidence that Obama’s team “has lost its
bearings in an effort to close Guantanamo as quickly as possible.”
“The administration has sent a confusing message to our
troops on the battlefield who no longer know when civilian law enforcement
rules or the laws of war might apply,” Graham said.
Even advocates of Guantanamo’s closure viewed the skeletal
plan outlined Tuesday with skepticism, however. “If Thomson will
be used to facilitate (detainees’) lawful prosecution, then this is truly a
positive step,” said Joanne Mariner, the counterterrorism director at Human
Rights Watch. “But if the administration plans to hold the detainees indefinitely
in the Thomson prison without charging them, President Obama will
simply have moved Guantanamo to Illinois.”
“It will pose no danger to the community,”
national security adviser James L. Jones said Tuesday, while Durbin
vowed, “We will never forget 9/11.”
On paper, officials said, the facility, first opened in
2001, would be the nation’s most secure.
The letter to Quinn said acquiring Thomson would
allow the federal government to carry out Obama’s order to close the facility
at Guantanamo, where suspected terrorists have been housed since 2002.
Reported abuses at Guantanamo during the Bush administration
inflamed Islamic radicals and incurred disapproval from the international
community. Obama sought to empty the prison camps at Guantanamo by Jan. 22,
but has acknowledged the deadline can’t be met.
Of detainees still at Guantanamo, five have been designated
for federal trial, with another 25 under consideration. The Pentagon’s Chief
War Crimes Prosecutor, Navy Capt. John F. Murphy, has said his staff is
building war crimes court cases for as many as 55 of the 210 detainees now at
Guantanamo.
Separately, officials said they’d also use the portion of
the Thomson prison used for Guantanamo detainees — as opposed to
federal prisoners — for indefinite detainees, of whom there were nine approved
by the federal courts through habeas corpus review, the yardstick a senior
administration official said he’d use.
Two senior administration officials, speaking to reporters
on condition of anonymity at White House insistence, said current law
would allow Guantanamo detainees awaiting military commission proceedings to be
transferred to Thomson and would allow the facility to become the new
site for those proceedings.
Guantanamo detainees awaiting prosecution through civilian
courts wouldn’t go to Thomson but to the jurisdiction where they’d be
tried, such as alleged Sept. 11 mastermindKhalid Sheikh Mohammed and
four fellow accused, whom Attorney General Eric Holder have
designated for trial in New York. Detainees to be sent to other countries
would stay at Guantanamo until leaving the U.S., the officials said.
As for “indefinite detainees,” whom the government
likely couldn’t prosecute but who are considered too much of a threat to
national security to release, administration officials said they’d need Congress to
change the law before they could be transferred to U.S. soil.
Via McClatchy-Tribune
News Service.
