Legislation aims to shut state's door to Gitmo inmates

WASHINGTON

The Obama administration risks adding to the danger of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil and promoting alliances between international terrorists and criminal gangs if it transfers suspected enemy combatants to facilities inside the United States, three of Virginia's Republican congressmen warned Monday.

Reps. Randy Forbes of Chesapeake, Eric Cantor of Henrico County and Frank Wolf of Fairfax County said they want Congress to pre-empt any effort to move prisoners now at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to facilities in Virginia.

The lawmakers conceded that they're unaware of any plan for such a move but argued that President Barack Obama has opened the door to transfers by announcing his intention to close the Guantanamo prison. The administration says it's still deciding what to do with about 250 suspected terrorists now at Guantanamo.

"We don't think they should be anywhere in the U.S." and particularly not in Virginia, Forbes said. Lawmakers from at least nine other states also have filed legislation to keep Guantanamo detainees out of their states.

Forbes and his colleagues complained that Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder decided to close Guantanamo before Holder visited the prison last month to assess conditions there.

Holder returned from the visit saying he was satisfied that prisoners are being treated humanely. The Guantanamo prison has been the target of attacks by human rights activists who contend that some prisoners there have been tortured. The Bush administration has acknowledged that some prisoners were subjected to waterboarding, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning.

The current administration's director of national intelligence, retired Adm. Dennis Blair, told Congress last month that publicity about Guantanamo has made the camp a foreign policy and security liability. U.S. allies are reluctant to participate in counterterrorism policies because of the camp's image, he testified.

Forbes, Cantor and Wolf said two military-run prisons - the Navy brig in Norfolk and the Marine Corps brig at the Quantico Marine Base - have been identified as potential places to house inmates from Guantanamo. The two brigs were among a series of military facilities pinpointed by House Armed Services Committee staffers last year as places where space is available; neither the committee nor the administration has suggested they be used.

Cantor argued that both Virginia sites are relatively close to nuclear power plants that could be targets for terrorist attack. Wolf said placing the Guantanamo detainees anywhere in the United States could facilitate alliances between international terrorists and violent gangs that already recruit new members inside the prisons.

Darrell Legg, a former case management coordinator for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, said it's unlikely any inmates transferred from Guantanamo would be allowed to interact with domestic prisoners.

"Whatever setting they're placed in, it's likely to be 23-hour lockdown," said Legg, who now works on prisoner classification issues for Federal Prison Consultants, a Florida-based company.

Dale Eisman, (703) 913-9872, dale.eisman@pilotonline.com