MB Civic

Miami Herald

Posted on Sat, Mar. 17, 2007

Proposal for housing Guantnamo captives draws critics
BY CAROL ROSENBERG

Some U.S. House Democrats who want to close the Guantnamo Bay detention
center are floating an idea to move captives to American military brigs on
U.S. soil.

Republicans are opposing the idea, with one Florida congressman issuing a
press release, “America’s Most Wanted Terrorists Not Welcome in the
Sunshine State.”

Rep. James Moran, D-Va., a member of the House defense subcommittee, said in
a recent interview on Fox News Channel, “I’m simply offering some options.
If you close [the Guantnamo detention center], we do have military brigs
that are secure.”

”I don’t see the momentum yet within Congress, although I know the
Democratic leadership feels that Gitmo is undoing our progress in the war on
terrorism,” he said.

At issue is where the Bush administration would relocate some 395 or so men
and teens held captive at Guantnamo, should Democrats in the House
Appropriations Committee successfully strip funding for the prison camps
from future spending bills.

He and Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the House Appropriations defense
subcommittee, are identifying funding sources for the detention center at
the U.S. Navy base in Cuba — then will seek to slice the money from the
2008 appropriations bill the committee sends to the House floor.

Pentagon officials have long defended the need for such a detention center,
describing the men as dangerous would-be terrorists; they have long argued
that, were they not held in remote Cuba, the men would have to be locked up
somewhere.

Moran’s aide, Austin Durrer, said that his boss is leaving it up to the
White House to determine where to move the captives held as ”enemy
combatants” at Camp Delta, some for more than five years.

The current detainees range from long-held alleged members of the Taliban
and al Qaeda to the more recently arrived Khalid Sheik Mohammed, reputed
mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks who went before a review panel last
weekend.

”I can assure you Guantnamo Bay is not ready to be closed, nor should it
be closed,” said South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham. “And
Charleston, South Carolina, is not the proper venue to bring the mastermind
of 9/11 and his cohorts.”

In successive interviews, Moran has suggested several locations that might
house the captives, including the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort
Leavenworth, Kan.; the U.S. Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., and the Marine
Corps brig at Quantico, Va., 40 miles from Washington, D.C.

Proposals to close the prison camps come as other Democrats are pressing to
rewrite the Military Commissions Act, change Guantnamo war-crimes court
procedures and restore the captives’ right to challenge their ongoing
detention through habeas corpus petitions in federal courts.

Moran has argued that moving the captives to certain brigs could put them in
the jurisdiction of the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond,
Va.

”I’d like to see them in the Fourth Circuit Court because that’s the most
conservative, the most disciplined and efficient court,” he told Fox News
Channel. “Nobody could argue that they didn’t get a fair trial.”

So far, the proposal to move Guantnamo’s captives has gotten no traction in
the U.S. Senate, but it stirred Republican fury on Capitol Hill and
attracted attention on Internet blogs.

The office of Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, issued a GOP Leader Alert
declaring: “If Democrats seriously want to import known terrorists —
captured in the field of battle against American troops — perhaps we can
set them up with a nice sunny spot in San Francisco?”

”Democrats want to close Gitmo AND move the prisoners HERE!” said a
comment posted on AngryYoungConservativesUnite.com a blog called
AngryYoungConservativesUnite.

Florida Republican Rep. Tom Feeney, from near Orlando, said in his press
release, ‘I absolutely object to the Democrats’ plan to close down
Guantnamo Bay and relocate America’s most wanted terrorist thugs to
American soil.”