Gates grilled over fate of Guantanamo inmates
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration began internal discussions this week over where to put Guantanamo Bay detainees if they are not tried or sent to other nations, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday.
Gates got a hostile reception from several lawmakers over sending any high-security Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. mainland and the defense chief said he anticipated strong opposition to such a move.
"I fully expect to have 535 pieces of legislation before this is over saying: 'Not in my district. Not in my state.' And we'll just have to deal with that when the time comes," Gates told the Senate Appropriations Committee.
"Those discussions have just gotten started. There clearly will be a specific plan that comes out of this," he said.
In one of his first acts after taking office, U.S. President Barack Obama ordered that the military prison at the U.S. Naval base in Cuba be closed within a year.
The prison was opened to house terrorism suspects after the September 2001 attacks against the United States and became a stain on the U.S. human rights record.
"The president has made the decision to close Guantanamo. It's something that his predecessor should be done, something that I said should be done over a year ago," said Gates, who was also President George W. Bush's defense chief.
The cases of all 241 detainees held at Guantanamo are being reviewed and Gates expected 50-100 inmates would not go to other countries, be tried or released.
In preparation for this, Gates said the defense department had asked for $50 million "as a hedge" to allow building to begin to accommodate those detainees.
No decisions had been taken over where this might be.
NOT IN MY BACKYARD
Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback was adamant he did not want any Guantanamo detainees sent to his state, whose Fort Leavenworth military base is frequently cited as an option.
"Please, not at Leavenworth," said Brownback.
Brownback said many Muslim nations had told him they would not send their military officers to be trained at the Kansas base if the detainees were transferred there.
"They don't think they should be detained. Period. Let alone be at the same spot they would put their future commanding officers," Brownback argued.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell was also critical of plans to move detainees to the U.S. mainland, pointing to the security risk.
"Communities are going to be upset about this. This is a very important issue and it deals with public safety, as we all know. We haven't been attacked against since 9/11. We like that and we'd like for that record to continue," the Kentucky senator said.
He said no one had ever escaped from Guantanamo Bay and even the current Attorney General Eric Holder, who has visited the facility, said inmates were treated humanely there.
State Department officials have been in negotiations for months with European and other nations to take in detainees and help close the prison.
"What we are attempting to do is try to convince other countries to take back their own nationalities of detainees and perhaps even others, and we have an intensive outreach effort going on to that effect right now," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the hearing.
Asked what would happen to the buildings currently used at Guantanamo, Gates said it would probably be "mothballed."
"I don't think we've actually addressed that piece of it yet, but I suspect that's what would happen."
(Additional reporting by David Morgan and Jeremy Pelofsky; Editing by Eric Walsh)
