Missouri Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder today denounced President Barack Obama’s proposal to close Guantanamo Detention Center and transfer its detainees to a facility in the United States.
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The plan calls for transferring between 30 and 60 detainees to the United States, suggesting possible locations in South Carolina, Kansas and Colorado.
Using military commissions to review the detention status of a number of inmates has been “very costly”, Obama said.
He pointed out that closing the detention facility was one of the “few things” that he and Senator John McCain agreed on in 2008, and that President George W. Bush had also advocated for the closure.
Obama did not point to specific facilities where the detainees would be moved within the United States and recognized that closing the facility would require hard work alongside a Republican-controlled Congress that has recently expressed opposition to closing the prison.
The president told reporters on Tuesday it undermined national security.
However, a senior administration official said closing the prison is a national security priority, adding that the facility has “inspired” jihadists and served as a recruiting tool for terrorists.
“Moreover, keeping this facility open is contrary to our values”, Obama said. It drains military resources, with almost $450 million spent past year alone to keep it running, and more than $200 million in additional costs needed to keep it open going forward for less than 100 detainees.
Renovations on a new site are expected to cost as much as $475 million, but the plan is ultimately expected to save the USA somewhere between $65 and $85 million a year in operating costs. “These are people who are some of the worse of the worst and why would we send them into our country?”
“Once I get that legal order, we will execute it”, JTF Guantanamo Bay Commander Rear Admiral Peter Clarke said while sitting down with ABC Action News earlier this month. “I will fight any plan that closes Guantanamo without congressional approval, ?” said Coats, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
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Not surprisingly given that political dynamic, Blunt’s backers have tried to paint Kander as an Obama ally.
