(Somehow these local governments all seem like vultures.)
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Originally published 04:45 a.m., July 5, 2009, updated 10:01 a.m., July 5, 2009
Ill. city would welcome terror detainees
Jim Suhr ASSOCIATED PRESS

MARION, Ill. | Once the nation's most secure prisons, 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."



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WALTER LIPPMANN
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
"Cuba - Un ParaĆ­so bajo el bloqueo"
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