[Peace-discuss] Illinois City Would Welcome Terror Detainees

[Robert Naiman]

Washington Times
July 5, 2009
Pg. 2

Illinois City Would Welcome Terror Detainees

By Jim Suhr, Associated Press

MARION, Ill.--Once the nation's most secure prison, the federal lockup
in southern Illinois has housed everyone from spies to a Colombian
druglord to dapper mob boss John Gotti.

Now the mayor of Marion hopes to roll out the welcome mat for a new
set of accused criminals: terrorism suspects now held at the U.S.
Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

While other cities across the United States have balked at taking in
any of the more than 200 detainees from the infamous lockup in Cuba
that President Obama hopes to shutter, Marion is part of a small
contingent seeking out the prisoners - and the money and jobs they
might bring.

"We have the facility, and I say: Bring them on," Mayor Robert Butler said.

Mr. Butler would have to clear many hurdles before that would happen,
chief among them persuading the Bureau of Prisons to restore his
town's medium-security prison to its former high-security status. Sen.
Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the Senate's second-ranking Democrat,
has asked the bureau to study housing Guantanamo detainees at
super-maximum-security prisons and possibly returning the Marion
facility to that status.

Marion and other communities such as Thomson, Ill., Hardin, Mont., and
Florence, Colo., are bucking a trend that has mostly seen politicians
cry "not in my backyard" since Mr. Obama announced in January that he
wanted to close the Navy-run detention site, making good on a campaign
pledge.

Capitol Hill opponents have criticized Mr. Obama for planning to empty
the facility early next year without first detailing what to do with
its detainees. Congress has blocked the administration from spending
any money this year to imprison them in the United States - which in
turn could slow or even halt Obama's pledge to close Guantanamo by
Jan. 21.

Some prisoners already have been transferred to other countries, and
the Obama administration is negotiating with foreign leaders to accept
others.

But relocating Guantanamo's prisoners to U.S. soil has been thorny
partly because the nation's federal prisons already are near capacity.
For now, the Marion prison has more than 930 inmates and a couple
dozen empty beds, spokesman Tom Werlich said.

Neither the Bureau of Prisons nor Mr. Werlich would speculate whether
any of the sites would be able to accommodate Guantanamo's inmates.

But these hurdles haven't stopped Mr. Butler from dreaming of bringing
back about 100 corrections jobs that were lost when the prison, which
replaced San Francisco's famed Alcatraz in 1963 as the nation's most
secure, lowered its security level some years ago.

Marion could have competition.

In tiny, economically distressed Hardin, Mont., officials figure a
brand-new, empty medium-security jail built two years ago for $27
million stands ready to have Guantanamo's displaced fill many of its
460 beds - even though the state's congressional delegation thinks it
is a bad idea. Town leaders say the jail, conceived as a holding
facility for drunks and other scofflaws, could be fortified with a
couple of guard towers and razor wire.

Many residents in Florence, Colo., also have spoken in favor of
housing some of the Guantanamo detainees at the nearby federal
supermax prison, which Colorado's Democratic governor, Bill Ritter
Jr., has called "well-suited" for the task.

In Thomson, in western Illinois, the high-tech, maximum-security wing
of a prison completed in 2001 at a cost of $140 million remains
unopened. Jerry Hebeler, the village's president, says he would
welcome Guantanamo detainees to pine away in some of the wing's 1,600
cells.

At the same time, many towns with federal prisons and their
representatives in Congress have made it clear they do not want to
inherit any Guantanamo transplants. Lawmakers have filed bills to keep
detainees out of their states, with reasons ranging from inadequate
prison space to the proximity to high-population centers.

Mr. Butler said Marion and other cities cannot afford to post "Keep
Out" signs for accused terrorists.

"You've got people who are enemies of the nation, and you've got to
hold onto them," he said. "We need to put them someplace where they
can't get out and do harm. I think this would be as good of a place as
any."


-- 
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org