Charlie Savage reports that Congress -- whose irrational fears regarding the imprisonment of suspected terrorists on American soil and rampant NIMBYism have been a massive impediment to closing Guantanamo Bay -- is refusing to appropriate funding to help prepare the maximum security prison in Thomson, Illinois, to house those detainees who will be tried by military commission and possibly those who will be held indefinitely.
The federal Bureau of Prisons does not have enough money to pay Illinois for the center, which would cost about $150 million. Several weeks ago, the White House approached the House Appropriations Committee and floated the idea of adding about $200 million for the project to the military spending bill for the 2010 fiscal year, according to administration and Congressional officials.
But Democratic leaders refused to include the politically charged measure in the legislation. When lawmakers approved the bill on Dec. 19, it contained no financing for Thomson.
Savage also talks to the former Bush-era undersecretary of defense for detainee affairs, Matthew Waxman, who says that "[s]ome members of Congress may want to support rapid closure of Guantánamo but not to signal support for broad military detention powers."
I'm sympathetic to this idea. If some of the individuals we've captured are fighters (as opposed to terrorists), they should be returned to the country where they were captured (if that can be done in a manner that doesn't put them in danger) to stand trial or be released. There's an argument for holding battlefield captures until the conflict is over, but Gen. Stanley McChrystal has recommended that over the long term, authority over the detention of insurgents be transferred to the government of Afghanistan. If they were captured in third countries, they should either be charged with a crime or released. There's no reason to hold people captured in military conflicts on American soil -- not because we're unable to do so safely, but because in this context it doesn't really make sense.
UPDATE: Spencer Ackerman writes that this dynamic provides a slim opportunity for civil libertarians to push for dropping the military commissions entirely, since Congress has already provided the administration with the authority to bring detainees to American soil for civilian trials.
-- A. Serwer
