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January 23, 2009 05:40 PM UTC

Gitmo Detainees To Florence?

  • 37 Comments
  • 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…

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37 thoughts on “Gitmo Detainees To Florence?”

    1. We have to fix what Bush broke. These detainees MUST proceed to the federal criminal justice system, and have due process in order for America to salvage its role as a moral leader in the world. I’m really sorry that DOC has to bear that burden, BUT IT’S THEIR JOB. Not bringing these people to America is only justified by a desire to grant these prisoners subhuman rights. It must end.

      Buffie is so great usually, too. This is stunning. We have a responsibility to the whole world on this, and if Colorado is asked to do our part we will stand up with or without her.

  2. …but the answer is his party fucked this all up, and the President is trying to fix it.

    Ultimately, Congress and the Governors can’t do shit, since the Commander-in-Chief can designate any Federal facility as a POW or Detainee holding point. (WWII Set this precedent.)

    If he tells GEN Graham at Fort Carson to build a prison camp and guard it with an infantry brigade, then it’s happening. And if Al-Qaeda wants to try a Steven Segal movie and attack the camp, the crossfire happens on Fort Carson, not Colorado Springs.

  3. The Federal prison complex at Florence (which includes Supermax among several others) is not the “Department of Corrections” (the state agency).

    There are already several terrorists being housed at the Federal complex in Florence so I’m not sure that adding some from Guantanamo or elsewhere would be a major change.  It is very important, however, to note that there have been significant incidents at the Florence complex due to inadequate staffing over the past several years.  That issue must be addressed – by Congress and the President – if additional terrorists are to be brought to Florence.

    1. She may have simply misnamed the agency, and as we said she’s more concerned with the corrections employees in her district–who work in both state and federal prisons.

      1. She almost certainly meant to say “Bureau of Prisons” or maybe “Department of Justice” as a whole. I’m really glad you guys cleared this up, I like Buffie a lot and knew that her heart was in the right place.

    2. part of a larger organization?  I’m honestly asking.  I’ve heard Buffie bring up prisoners like the would-be shoe-bomb guy, but I don’t know if he was working with anyone.

      I ask because you had my question, what’s the difference if you add a couple?  The only issue I see is making the prison a target, which sounds a little 24 to me.  It would be much easier to go through Cuba, bomb and escape, whereas Colorado would be a huge problem.  You know, if we’re getting paranoid.

      1. There’s always been a large (size-classified) detachment of Combat Marines sitting in Gitmo armed & ammo’d up for extended combat ops. That was before we set up our Concentration Camp for the Detainees.

        If A-Q thinks they can do a Mumbai and run zodiacs up to the beach at Gitmo, they’ll get fragged like a level on a PS2 Medal Of Honor game.

        Of course, to try and assault SuperMax, they’d need all of the 8000 enemy agents that Bush and Cheney claimed were running around the US after 9/11. Since A-Q has NO agents in the US with combat weapons and training, it is completely paranoid.

        BTW, what makes any of you think they’ll announce where they’re actually sending the detainees? Think about WWII and Patton’s fake army in England – I’m sure the official story is Fort Leavenworth, but how many will actually go there?

        1. signed yesterday did away with secret prisons. The idea is to treat these prisoners as we would any other — including the serious bad guys already at Supermax, including some with connections to al Qaeda — and stop treating them like terrorist supermen.  

          1. It’s interesting that there’s a hue and cry about Gitmo prisoners coming to Colorado when Zacarias Moussaoui is already sitting in ADX Florence.  

  4. Has anyone ever broken out of supermax?

    Obama has been prez for just an hour over 3 days now.  The republicans are going into fear overload now.  

    I was under the impression that fear for fears sake had been voted away. Apparently not.

      1. So, not one of the worse of the worst has walked away from Supermax, let alone been blasted out by terrorists.

        That should calm down a little bit of the hysteria about having dangerous people in custody there.  Inspite of the white knuckle fear being bullhorned by the republicans, there are not going to be any terrorists just walking away to show up at an elementary school with AK-47’s blasting away following the initial grenade attack.

  5. will depend a lot on how they are going to be dealt with.  Some may end up in the federal court system and will likely go to Florence.

    Some may be tried in military courts martial and will likely end up in a military prison (Fort Leavanworth in Kansas as an example).  Others may end up in some as yet created special judicial process and where they go or will be housed remains to be seen.

    Some may be sent to other countries (if any will have them).

    It is highly unlikely that all the Gitmo prisoners will go to one place.

    1. By the volatile nature of the suspects, I doubt the Feds will tell the truth on where they are being locked up. Deception Operations, OPSEC, whatever you want to call it.

      I wouldn’t doubt if the DoD or DoJ did a nifty little press junket where they’ll show a few detainees locked up in Fort Leavenworth, and then ship a majority of them to Fort Hood and Fort Irwin Confinement facilities.

  6. I almost diaried on the second, which has Greg Brophy making things up about the oil and gas regulations (claiming they include a ‘moratorium’ on drilling in wildlife habitat although that was removed 7 months ago…)

    Their latest includes this choice quote from Gardner

    “If Gov. Ritter has his way, there will be a pipeline of terrorism from Kabul to Colorado.”

    It also includes the confusion between DOC (state) and BoP (Fed) noted above…

    Last week I diaried on another that substituted the verb ‘shudder’ for ‘shutter.’

    C’mon fellas don’t you guys have any sense? or Fact-checkers? or proof-readers?  And you hope to be in charge someday?  

     

  10. All the media attention, journalists coming here to cover the story, the snow capped mountains in the background, visions of skiing dancing in their heads, can only be good for Colorado, business, creating jobs (even green ones).

    Can you imagine terrorists trying to break out of Supermax?  Laughable.  Lamborn & Buffie, get over it.

    1. about the same things Lamborn is. She has a legitimate concern that the FBP will step up with staffing and resources, because they’ve let things get bad at Supermax even with its current high-profile terrorist residents.

      Lamborn is just scared.

  11. “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.

    …it sounds like it will be a little difficult for Gitmo terrorists to recruit other inmates while at the Supermax in Florence:

    …inmates remain in solitary confinement for 22-23 hours each day. They do not allow communal dining, exercising, or religious services.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A…

  12. is that it is a prison. For those convicted. Those at Gitmo haven’t been convicted. I think another facility needs to built, or converted. Those who have not been convicted generally have a larger and different set of rights than those who have been convicted. Rules of law. Come on, we can do this and do it properly. It doesn’t matter to me what state they are put in.

    2. the ACLU makes in the link rathmone cites above. I’m surprised the Republican opponents didn’t reach deeply enough into their civil libertarian hearts to make the same argument, but then they’d have to acknowledge a good many of the detentions are shams.

  13. Cory Gardner is a blubbering buffoon. If anyone ever took him seriously before, now is the time reconsider. Not only is his ignorance showing but so is his ambition.

    It’s as if he put Palin’s high heels on for they’re both egotistical drama queens.  

  14. There are 4 facilities at Florence. Minimum, Medium, Maximum and Admin Max (adx). Yes, some have walked away from minimum security; it’s why it has that name. However, those housed there usually aren’t imprisoned for violent crimes (i.e., printing $20 bills).

    It’s my understanding (from doing a prison ministry there) that adx is all underground. The inmates have their 6′ cell and are allowed out for 1 hour a day. They can use their hour to shower with a guard present, or walk under opaque sky lights. They never see the light of day again or another human being other than that guard.

    These people need to be tried in a court of law. How they can be held for years without a conviction tells the world volumes about America and the Bush administration. As an American and former “Joisey” girl, I have NO problem with them serving their time at FCI Florence, if convicted.

    If you have a problem with it, just think about those Americans jumping out of the WTC. And maybe move to Canada.

  15. Always claiming the testosterone method, packing 9mm heat in belts with the border Minute Men.

    But put a real tarist in their back yard and they run screaming because someone said, “Boo!”

    Have I ever mentioned how much these guys are hypocrites?  Oh, sorry….

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