Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Miami Herald
June 26, 2008
Pg. 3
GOP senators clashed with McCain, their presidential nominee, over where to put Guantánamo detainees in an emerging, classic 'Not In My Backyard' brouhaha.
By Carol Rosenberg
In a Senate-wide appeal, both Republican senators from Kansas urged fellow lawmakers in a letter Wednesday to abandon a bipartisan idea of moving Guantánamo detainees to Fort Leavenworth, the Army base in their state that houses the military's largest prison.
The issue is a source of dispute within the GOP because Republican Sen. John McCain, his party's presumptive presidential nominee, has championed the Fort Leavenworth idea.
''Not all prisons are created equal,'' wrote Sens. Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts in a two-page letter. The prison facility at Fort Leavenworth ``is not equipped to perform this mission.''
Members of Congress from both parties have long suggested Fort Leavenworth as an alternative to the sprawling prison camp compound in Guantánamo, which today holds 270 war-on-terror captives. Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama also has said he'll close Guantánamo.
But McCain has been the most specific. ''I would close Guantánamo Bay. And I would move those prisoners to Fort Leavenworth,'' he said on CBS's 60 Minutes in April 2007.
Brownback and Roberts called it unfair to ask an Army base already guarding criminal soldiers to also guard terror suspects. ''Nor is it fair to ask the Kansas community to assume the responsibility associated with being located immediately adjacent to these detainees,'' they wrote.
The men also noted that the so-called Supermax federal prison in Florence, Colo., where several convicted al Qaeda terrorists are held, has stricter and more suitable security arrangements for such an assignment.
The debate over what to do with the Guantánamo detainees has been heightened by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision two weeks ago that Guantánamo detainees can appeal their detention in U.S. federal courts, voiding a key reason for keeping them on foreign soil.
Fort Leavenworth houses the main prison for members of the U.S. military serving long sentences on criminal convictions. It is called the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks and has cell space for 515 criminals.
It currently houses about 430 soldiers, all men.
June 26, 2008
Pg. 3
GOP senators clashed with McCain, their presidential nominee, over where to put Guantánamo detainees in an emerging, classic 'Not In My Backyard' brouhaha.
By Carol Rosenberg
In a Senate-wide appeal, both Republican senators from Kansas urged fellow lawmakers in a letter Wednesday to abandon a bipartisan idea of moving Guantánamo detainees to Fort Leavenworth, the Army base in their state that houses the military's largest prison.
The issue is a source of dispute within the GOP because Republican Sen. John McCain, his party's presumptive presidential nominee, has championed the Fort Leavenworth idea.
''Not all prisons are created equal,'' wrote Sens. Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts in a two-page letter. The prison facility at Fort Leavenworth ``is not equipped to perform this mission.''
Members of Congress from both parties have long suggested Fort Leavenworth as an alternative to the sprawling prison camp compound in Guantánamo, which today holds 270 war-on-terror captives. Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama also has said he'll close Guantánamo.
But McCain has been the most specific. ''I would close Guantánamo Bay. And I would move those prisoners to Fort Leavenworth,'' he said on CBS's 60 Minutes in April 2007.
Brownback and Roberts called it unfair to ask an Army base already guarding criminal soldiers to also guard terror suspects. ''Nor is it fair to ask the Kansas community to assume the responsibility associated with being located immediately adjacent to these detainees,'' they wrote.
The men also noted that the so-called Supermax federal prison in Florence, Colo., where several convicted al Qaeda terrorists are held, has stricter and more suitable security arrangements for such an assignment.
The debate over what to do with the Guantánamo detainees has been heightened by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision two weeks ago that Guantánamo detainees can appeal their detention in U.S. federal courts, voiding a key reason for keeping them on foreign soil.
Fort Leavenworth houses the main prison for members of the U.S. military serving long sentences on criminal convictions. It is called the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks and has cell space for 515 criminals.
It currently houses about 430 soldiers, all men.