President Barack Obama seems to have won over enough Congressional Democrats to push forward with his plan to move Guantanamo prisoners to a facility in rural Illinois, but the official announcement Tuesday triggered a firestorm of criticism that could undercut his stated goal of depriving Al Qaeda of a key propaganda point.
“In taking this action, we are removing from terrorist organizations around the world the recruiting tool that Guantanamo has come to symbolize,” National Security Adviser James Jones told reporters.
“Today’s announcement that the federal government will acquire the Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson, Illinois, to house federal inmates and a limited number of detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is an important step forward as we work to achieve our national security objectives,” another top administration official said in a conference call with reporters.
But some critics said they feared that the Illinois facility, like the one in Cuba, could end up being a place where detainees are held indefinitely without trial.
Asked whether the proposed prison might be billed as an “Illinois Gitmo” to rally extremists against the United States, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, “not in any way, shape, or form nearly to the degree that currently exists.”
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But Kirk Lippold, commander of the U.S.S. Cole when it was attacked by terrorists in 2000, said Obama was unwisely inviting all the dangers of Guantanamo onto U.S. shores.
“The Administration is now adding economic manipulation to its bag of tricks to convince the American people that somehow they will be better off if terrorists are held and tried in our towns and communities, instead of a state-of-the-art detention facility built for that purpose,” Lippold said. “Gitmo North is not the answer.”
Said Cheney: “Americans did not elect President Obama to usher terrorists onto the homeland and call it a jobs program.” - Politico Story
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