Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Philadelphia Inquirer
March 1, 2007
By Robert Burns, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Robert Gates has downsized a planned compound for war-crimes trials, telling Congress he thought the initial Pentagon plan for a $100 million facility was "ridiculous."
The trials are planned beginning this summer for an unspecified number - likely 60 to 80 - of the approximately 390 terrorist suspects held at a prison compound at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. None has been charged with war crimes yet.
Among the terror suspects expected to face war-crimes trials are 14 "high-value" detainees who were recently transferred from secret CIA custody. They include Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and Abu Zubaydah, believed to be a link between Osama bin Laden and many al-Qaeda cells.
The originally proposed Guantanamo Bay courthouse compound, designed to accommodate as many as 1,200 people, would have created a total of three courtrooms to allow for multiple trials to be conducted simultaneously, and a separate high-security area to house the detainees facing trial, plus other support facilities.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.), a leading critic of the original construction plan, asked Gates at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing Tuesday why the administration's latest budget requests did not include the $100 million. The plan had been made before Gates replaced Donald H. Rumsfeld as defense chief in December.
"It seemed to me that by the time I received it, the request was, I think, for $92 million and I basically said, 'This is ridiculous,' " Gates said, adding that he was being "more candid than I probably should."
"I said, 'We'll be handed our hat if we go up to the Hill for $100 million for these courthouses,' " Gates added.
Human-rights groups and foreign governments have called on the Bush administration to close Guantanamo, saying detainees are being held illegally. The construction plan stirred a new round of criticism.
Feinstein had questioned the Pentagon's decision last fall to invoke emergency powers to bypass normal congressional reviews of its construction plan. In her exchange with Gates on Tuesday, she thanked him for abandoning the original $100 million plan.
The administration recently drafted new rules for the trials under the Military Commissions Act after the Supreme Court had declared last year that previous efforts to try Guantanamo detainees were unconstitutional.
Instead of building the court compound as originally proposed, Gates said, the Pentagon will use temporary buildings "like we've used in Iraq," and they will be ready for the first trials, likely to begin in July. Some of the additional facilities will be paid for by the $1.6 million that is included in the current budget request for facility upgrades, he added.
The total cost will be "a tenth of what we were originally contemplating," he said. He did not cite a specific dollar amount.
March 1, 2007
By Robert Burns, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Robert Gates has downsized a planned compound for war-crimes trials, telling Congress he thought the initial Pentagon plan for a $100 million facility was "ridiculous."
The trials are planned beginning this summer for an unspecified number - likely 60 to 80 - of the approximately 390 terrorist suspects held at a prison compound at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. None has been charged with war crimes yet.
Among the terror suspects expected to face war-crimes trials are 14 "high-value" detainees who were recently transferred from secret CIA custody. They include Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and Abu Zubaydah, believed to be a link between Osama bin Laden and many al-Qaeda cells.
The originally proposed Guantanamo Bay courthouse compound, designed to accommodate as many as 1,200 people, would have created a total of three courtrooms to allow for multiple trials to be conducted simultaneously, and a separate high-security area to house the detainees facing trial, plus other support facilities.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.), a leading critic of the original construction plan, asked Gates at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing Tuesday why the administration's latest budget requests did not include the $100 million. The plan had been made before Gates replaced Donald H. Rumsfeld as defense chief in December.
"It seemed to me that by the time I received it, the request was, I think, for $92 million and I basically said, 'This is ridiculous,' " Gates said, adding that he was being "more candid than I probably should."
"I said, 'We'll be handed our hat if we go up to the Hill for $100 million for these courthouses,' " Gates added.
Human-rights groups and foreign governments have called on the Bush administration to close Guantanamo, saying detainees are being held illegally. The construction plan stirred a new round of criticism.
Feinstein had questioned the Pentagon's decision last fall to invoke emergency powers to bypass normal congressional reviews of its construction plan. In her exchange with Gates on Tuesday, she thanked him for abandoning the original $100 million plan.
The administration recently drafted new rules for the trials under the Military Commissions Act after the Supreme Court had declared last year that previous efforts to try Guantanamo detainees were unconstitutional.
Instead of building the court compound as originally proposed, Gates said, the Pentagon will use temporary buildings "like we've used in Iraq," and they will be ready for the first trials, likely to begin in July. Some of the additional facilities will be paid for by the $1.6 million that is included in the current budget request for facility upgrades, he added.
The total cost will be "a tenth of what we were originally contemplating," he said. He did not cite a specific dollar amount.