Gates: No Place for Gitmo Prisoners

A hitch in President Obama’s plan to close Guantanamo Bay: Where to put the prisoners? Many of them will be sent to other countries or tried in U.S. courts, but yesterday Defense Secretary Robert Gates indicated that as many as 100 detainees could end up without trial on American soil. “What do we do with the 50 to 100—probably in that ballpark—who we cannot release and cannot try?” Gates asked in a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing. The Administration doesn’t know what to do with detainees who are too dangerous to release, but cannot be fairly tried due to the harsh ways they were interrogated. Gates asked for $50 million in case a facility for the detainees needs to be built quickly, and Congress members are already pleading that the facility not be built in their states.