January 23, 2009 05:40 PM UTC

Gitmo Detainees To Florence?

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• by: Colorado Pols

That’s Governor Bill Ritter’s suggestion in the aftermath of President Barack Obama’s order yesterday that the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay Cuba be closed within a year, along with the shadowy network of secret prisons operated by the Central Intelligence Agency. As 9NEWS reports:

Gov. Bill Ritter supports the idea of bringing terror suspects to Colorado to be housed at the federal Supermax prison in Florence.

The Associated Press reported a senior administration official said Colorado’s Supermax prison is being considered as a new home for some detainees after the Guantanamo Bay prison is closed because of President Barack Obama’s executive order.

“Supermax was built to handle exactly this type of inmate,” wrote Ritter spokesman Evan Dreyer in an e-mail to 9News, confirming Ritter’s support for the idea.

U.S. Rep Doug Lamborn, a Republican whose district includes Florence, opposes bringing detainees to Colorado.

“That’s the last thing we should do,” Lamborn said. “I don’t want them in Colorado, there at Supermax, or actually anyplace on American soil.”

Too bad for Doug Lamborn, America decided to obey international law yesterday. He and a very small number of throwbacks are the only ones not cheering–and history’s judgment on Gitmo will not be ambiguous.

As for Ritter, it’s not really his decision of course, but a great press opportunity: in addition to joining the repudiation of Bush over truly nightmarish affronts to decency like Gitmo, transferring these prisoners and their legal proceedings to Colorado will have a direct economic benefit measured in millions of dollars.

UPDATE: Still just one of several proposals, as the AP updates:

Supermax, in Florence about 90 miles south of Denver, is one of four prisons being looked at. The others are military prisons in Kansas, California and South Carolina.

Gov. Bill Ritter’s spokesman says the governor doesn’t oppose the idea but hasn’t been contacted by federal officials about it.

The spokesman, Evan Dreyer, said today a military prison is a more likely choice than Supermax.

U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., and state Rep. Buffie McFadyen, D-Pueblo West, have criticized of the idea of bringing Guantanamo detainees to Supermax.

Don’t be too quick to lump Rep. Buffie McFadyen in with the idiot Limbaugh regurgitations of Doug Lamborn. We don’t question her support for closing Guantanamo or complying with international law–McFadyen has always been a champion for corrections system workers in her House district, and their continuously strained resources. That’s where her opposition is stemming from, and it’s a reasonable point. We assume that any relocation of Gitmo prisoners to ADX-Florence would be accompanied by increased funding to handle the burden.

UPDATE #2: Republicans are circulating a petition against the transfer of Guantanamo inmates to Colorado, as the Rocky’s Lynn Bartels reports:

The petition says the detainees “pose a serious threat to our national security, as well as the safety and security of the communities in which they will utlimately be housed.”

UPDATE #3: State Senate Republicans go completely bug-eyed insane after the jump. Exclaims Rep. Cory Gardner, “If Gov. Ritter has his way, there will be a pipeline of terrorism from Kabul to Colorado!”

Led by the GOP’s Sen. Ken Kester, of Las Animas, and Rep. Cory Gardner, a Yuma Republican, the legislators gathered signatures on a petition circulated among colleagues in the General Assembly –both Democrats and Republicans–to protest Ritter’s willingness to offer Colorado’s Supermax prison as a place to house some of the world’s most hardened terrorists.

Kester, whose vast, southeastern Colorado district contains more prisons than any other legislative district in the nation, said he’s not only concerned about the dangers to Colorado’s public safety the Gitmo detainees would present, but also the economic strains they would put on the beleaguered Department of Corrections.

“I don’t really think it would be appropriate to mix these terrorists with the current prison population. They’re going to be in our prisons recruiting inmates to kill American servicemen and civilians,” Kester said. “Besides, there simply isn’t enough room.  We don’t have the beds or staffing to accommodate that many new prisoners.”

Kester and Gardner also believe the terrorists would create a magnet for other possible terror strikes in our state.

“It makes us a target,” Gardner said. “If Gov. Ritter has his way, there will be a pipeline of terrorism from Kabul to Colorado.”

On Thursday, President Barack Obama, in one of his first acts as head of state, issued an executive order stating that the prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba must be closed within one year.  The Associated Press reported that the Supermax prison in Florence is being considered by the Obama Administration as a possible new home for the Gitmo detainees…