Gitmo’s Days are Numbered
The White House moves closer to closing down Guantanamo Bay and moving Islamist terrorist prisoners to prisons on the U.S. mainland. Supreme Court and military court rulings have forced the Bush administration to completely revamp how to legally process these prisoners.
President Bush’s national security and legal advisers had been scheduled to discuss the move at a meeting Friday, the officials said, but after news of it broke, the White House said the meeting would not take place that day and no decision on Guantanamo Bay’s status is imminent.
“It’s no longer on the schedule for tomorrow,” said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council. “Senior officials have met on the issue in the past, and I expect they will meet on the issue in the future.”
Three senior administration officials spoke about the discussions on condition of anonymity because they were internal deliberations.
Expected to consult soon, according to the officials, were Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Peter Pace.
Previous plans to close Guantanamo ran into resistance from Cheney, Gonzales and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. But officials said the new suggestion is gaining momentum with at least tacit support from the State and Homeland Security departments, the Pentagon and the Intelligence directorate.
Administration critics domestic and international have hyperventilated claiming Gitmo is an American gulag. Newsweek spread a false story about a Koran flushed down a toilet to demonstrate how awful conditions are in the prison camp. If they’re so bad how about the prisoners’ weight gain?
Putting prisoners in Cuba made perfect security sense. Why take the risk of placing people willing to launch planes into buildings on U.S. soil? Sure, the chance of breaking out of Leavenworth are about nil, but why take the chance?
The Bush administration has had over six years to put together a legal process for these prisoners. Their botching has opened the door to anti-American smears using Gitmo as the focal point. Chalk up another bit of mismanagement on Bush’s watch.
Moving prisoners to Leavenworth and the naval brig in Charleston, S.C. won’t silence the critics. Amnesty International won’t shut up if an Islamist terrorist is sitting in Kansas instead of Cuba. To them it’s not about the prisoners’ location but what country is holding them and who the President is.
“White House Near Decision to Close Gitmo“
The Newsweek story turned out to be true, you know - confirmed by the Justice Department.
But I guess it could be different in the alternate reality you guys live in.