Earlier this week California senator Dianne Feinstein said that Gitmo detainees could easily be held at Supermax federal prison in Colorado, but Colorado senator Michael Bennet opposed this proposal, saying, "Because the detainees are being tried by military tribunals, they should be held in military facilities. Military detainees should not be transported to and held at Supermax because it is not a military facility."
Now the Denver Post reports on some logistical problems with moving the detainees to Supermax:
Should Guantanamo detainees be transferred to Supermax in Florence? Moving any large number of terror detainees from Guantanamo Bay to Colorado's Supermax would require either shuffling current residents out of the Florence prison or expanding its capacity and resolving a long-running battle over adequate prison staffing.
As President Barack Obama and congressional leaders point toward the Colorado federal prison as a possible new home for some of the detainees, one big problem is the bed-space crunch.
Supermax's approximately 480 concrete cells already are jammed with the likes of Oklahoma City bombing co-conspirator Terry Nichols, Atlanta Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph and other notorious domestic criminals. There also are 33 international terrorists, including Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, 1993 World Trade Center bombing mastermind Ramzi Yousef and failed airline shoe bomber Richard Reid.
Only one bed was not filled Thursday at Supermax, U.S. Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Tracy Billingsley said.
So getting any more than a handful of detainees from Guantanamo to Florence would require considerable logistical maneuvers to clear room or an even longer-term solution through prison expansion.
Perhaps Senator Feinstein will propose fortifying Alcatraz? I hear it's quite empty these days.
