WASHINGTON — As the president-elect’s incoming administration looks at possible locations to relocate detainees at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Republican lawmakers from those districts have already begun voicing opposition to the moves.
Sources within Barack Obama’s transition team have said that an announcement on the closing of the Guantanamo detention facilities could come within hours of his inauguration. Shutting down the prison and relocating the 260-plus terrorist suspects to other locations was one of Obama’s campaign promises.
But moving those prisoners to U.S. military bases could create a distraction or possible target for future terrorist attacks, lawmakers warned this week. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., called rumored plans to use Fort Leavenworth in his district an "unwise and unsafe" idea. He invited the president-elect down to the facility, promising tours of the Army’s Command General Staff College and other training areas.
"He will find that once you see the base up close, it’s hard to show why terror suspects should be housed in Kansas," he said in a statement.
Freshman Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, R-Calif., similarly dismissed ideas that detainees could be housed at the Marine Corps base in his district.
"Camp Pendleton is a place where we train our Marines and sailors for combat," he said in a statement. "It is not a detention facility, nor should it be transformed into one."
He called plans to close the Cuba detention facility "a serious mistake," calling it a logical place to house the dangerous prisoners.
In November, Rep. Henry Brown, R-S.C., introduced legislation in Congress to prohibit the use of any federal funds to relocate detainees to the Naval Consolidated Brig in his district, noting its proximity to nearby homes, other military weapons facilities and a state airport.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has also publicly opposed the move of any Guantanamo prisoners to Charleston. In a radio interview earlier this week, Vice President Dick Cheney opposed plans to rapidly shut down the Guantanamo detention facility.
On Tuesday, White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto reiterated President Bush’s support for closing it down at some point in the future, but noted "the incredible complexity of actually closing Guantanamo."
"You do have the problem of what do you do with known and hardened and experienced terrorists," he told reporters. "Where do you put them? I would agree with the vice president that, for now, Guantanamo is the place to keep them until we can find other solutions.
