AP: Democrats won't fund Guantanamo Closing?

[Laura PourMeADrink]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_GUANTANAMO?SITE=MAFAL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT


May 19, 12:32 PM EDT


AP Source: Democrats won't fund Guantanamo closing

By ANDREW TAYLOR
Associated Press Writer



WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama's allies in the Senate will not provide funds to close the Guantanamo Bay prison next January, a top Democratic official said Tuesday.

With debate looming on Obama's spending request to cover military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the official says Democrats will deny the Pentagon and Justice Department $80 million to relocate Guantanamo's 240 detainees.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the proposed changes to the bill were to be unveiled later.

The administration has yet to develop a plan for what to do with the detainees, and Obama's promise to close the facility is facing strong GOP opposition.

It appears to be a tactical retreat. Once the administration develops a plan to close the facility, congressional Democrats are likely to revisit the topic, provided they are satisfied there are adequate safeguards.

The developments on Capitol Hill came as the Pentagon said it still expects the prison at Guantanamo Bay to be closed by January 2010 as Obama has ordered.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters on Tuesday that he sees nothing to indicate the January 2010 deadline will be delayed.

Republicans are poised with an amendment by James Inhofe of Oklahoma that would block any of the Guantanamo detainees from ever coming to U.S. soil to stand trial or serve their sentences. A detainee was released to France last week, leaving 240 at Guantanamo.

"Shuttering this facility now could only serve one end: and that is to make Americans less safe than Guantanamo has," said GOP Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

House Democrats also dropped funding to close Guantanamo when producing their version of the war funding bill, which easily passed last week.

The Guantanamo controversy has roiled Washington, with most Republicans adamantly opposed to closing the prison, which mostly holds enemy combatants captured in Afghanistan. Republicans say abuses at the facility are a thing of the past.

The Senate's massive war spending measure otherwise sticks closely to Obama's request. The House version effectively exceeds Obama's request by almost $12 billion, adding $2.2 billion to foreign aid accounts and funding eight C-17 cargo planes despite Defense Secretary Robert Gates' desire to cease purchases of the aircraft as part of his effort to reform Pentagon procurement

[Occam Bandage]

1. There's not a complete plan yet. I don't blame them for not writing a blank check.

[Uzybone]

2. I agree with this, and I really hope this backbone stays in place

Congress really needs to get back to its rightful place.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

3. "Republicans say abuses at the facility are a thing of the past."

Ummmm......The EXISTENCE of Gitmo IS an "abuse" IMHO. For as long as we've had problems with terror suspects, our normal judicial system has appeared to be adequate for holding, trying, and incarcerating suspects if and when convicted. If they want to argue about the fact that some of these suspects were captured "on the battlefield" and aren't appropriate for civilian courts, fine, try them in the revamped military tribunals that Obama has been talking about and, if determined to be guilty, incarcerate them wherever convicted military detainees are incarcerated. However, it simply strains credulity to believe that we suddenly NEED an offshore prison like Gitmo for terror suspects now and in the future and I hope that Congress and Obama come up with a reasonable alternative that does NOT involve keeping Gitmo open and current and future detainees confined indefinitely. I am NOT happy at all that Dems like Jim Webb are playing along with the Republicans on this issue.

On a side note: Nice of them to find their "peckers" on this issue when they could hardly be troubled to oppose "clean" funding bills for Iraq year after year (even when we controlled Congress) despite the fact that we hadn't even needed to invade Iraq in the first place, Bushco didn't have a post-invasion plan other than passing off Ahmed Chalabi as the new leader of Iraq (WTF happened to him, anyway?), and, most importantly, Bushco never set (and in fact opposed even the mention of) a timeline for ending our occupation of Iraq. And now some Congressional Dems are refusing to fund the closure of Gitmo (not even scheduled until NEXT January) just because Obama doesn't have a fully detailed plan formulated yet??? :mad: Are THEY working on a plan or are they just going to sit there and wet their pants about having former Gitmo inmates (whose guilt or innocence has yet to be determined despite the fact that a lot of Congressmen and pundits magically seem to know) end up in regular prisons here in the US???? :eyes:

[jenmito]

4. I didn't see this and started a thread about Harry Reid saying...

he doesn't want any Gitmo detainees anywhere in U.S. prisons. So he won't fund the closing of Gitmo?! These detainees are no more able to escape from max security prisons than anyone else in them.

[butterfly77]

5. Repugs say that we are the biggest and the baddest so..

WHAT ARE THEY AFRAID OF? along with some of these dems. Why are they afraid of these terrorists are these terrorists supermen or something?