AP sources: Military-civilian terror prison eyed

[celticlord]

My Way News - AP sources: Military-civilian terror prison eyed

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration is looking at creating a courtroom-within-a-prison complex in the U.S. to house suspected terrorists, combining military and civilian detention facilities at a single maximum-security prison.

Several senior U.S. officials said the administration is eyeing a soon-to-be-shuttered state maximum security prison in Michigan and the military penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., as possible locations for a heavily guarded site to hold the 229 suspected al-Qaida, Taliban and foreign fighters now jailed at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba.

The officials outlined the plans - the latest effort to comply with President Barack Obama's order to close the prison camp by Jan. 22, 2010, and satisfy congressional and public fears about incarcerating terror suspects on American soil - on condition of anonymity because the options are under review.

White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said Friday that no decisions have been made about the proposal. But the White House considers the courtroom-prison complex as the best among a series of bad options, an administration official said.

Dear Leader is having to confront the same legal and Constitutional issues Bush faced when he made the original decision to house foreign terrorists at Guantanamo. Bringing them onto American soil invites the jurisdiction of the US Courts. Keeping them outside the US keeps the courts at arms length--which is where they belong, given that US law does not address the particular challenges of foreign terrorism.

Choosing to close Gitmo was a rash and hasty decision based on not thinking through the ramifications of bringing those terrorists into the United States.