Blue Herald
10
May
Pentagon Predicts Years of Guantanamo Trials
by QuestionGirl • 9:47 am

About 30 detainees who were released from Guantnamo have re-joined the fight against the United States, according to Benkert.

Do these people just spew out whatever they think sounds good? So what…no other prisoners should ever be released? I’ll tell ya what, if I was held in the hell hole that is Guantanamo for years with no charges ever brought against me and then released, and I was innocent, I might take up a fight against the U.S. when released. George Bush has created more terrorists than any person on the face of the earth.

WASHINGTON — It will take several years to complete military commission trials for 60 to 80 Guantnamo Bay detainees if the Bush administration decides to conduct that many, a House subcommittee was told Wednesday.

The Pentagon estimate came as the appropriations panel chaired by Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., questioned how long the Bush administration will keep the prison open and whether to move the 380 detainees.

A week ago, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., introduced a measure to close the prison camps and move commission trials to the United States.

At the hearing, Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla., suggested that California should take the detainees.

Some serious thought should be given to reopening Alcatraz, Young said during the three-hour session.

”I certainly wouldn’t want to send them to any place else except San Francisco,” joked Rep. Jerry Lewis, a Republican from southern California.

After the hearing, Young said he was being serious about Alcatraz as a place to take the detainees in the event that Guantnamo Bay is closed. Young opposes closing Guantnamo.

The prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., has 70 open beds, said Marine Col. Dwight Sullivan, chief defense counsel for the Office of Military Commissions. The brig in Charleston, S.C., has space for an additional 100 prisoners, Sullivan told the congressional panel.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said Congress and the administration should work together to allow the United States to permanently imprison some of the more dangerous Guantnamo Bay detainees elsewhere so the facility can be closed.

It would take three years or so to complete a process of conducting 60 to 80 military commission trials, said Daniel J. Dell’Orto, principal deputy general counsel at the Defense Department.

In the months after Sept. 11, the military considered locations in the United States and elsewhere for the detention facility that ended up at Guantnamo Bay, said Joseph Benkert, principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for global security affairs.

One factor in favor of Guantnamo was that its isolated Navy base would make it a difficult target for terrorists. About 30 detainees who were released from Guantnamo have re-joined the fight against the United States, according to Benkert.

More at The Miami Herald


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