Is $100M Guantanamo Courthouse Necessary?

Pentagon's Plans For Another Facility To Try 60 People Are Questioned

(CBS)  The U.S. government already has a courthouse at Guantanamo Bay, but the Pentagon isn't satisfied, CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports. It plans to spend $100 million of your tax dollars to build a huge new facility just down the hill.

"This is very expensive for the number of cases, 60, which they anticipate trying," says Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

That's right, a $100 million courthouse to try about 60 cases. That's $1.6 million per defendant ... just for the building. The trials will cost many millions more.

Of course, these aren't run-of-the-mill defendants. They're terror suspects including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammad. Still, both Republicans and Democrats in Congress are balking at the idea — and the cost — in private meetings with Defense Department officials.

"I asked them if they had looked at alternatives in the United States, looked at them, and the answer was no," Feinstein says. "I was surprised that they hadn't looked at Fort Leavenworth, at other places to build a courthouse, to bring these people over, to keep them in secure custody, to try them."

But this building will house more than courtrooms. The courthouse would sleep up to 1,200 people, there would be a dining facility for 800, and a garage big enough for 100 vehicles.

Tax watchdog Tom Finnigan of Citizens Against Government Waste says his radar antennae went up when the Pentagon recently tried to push the plans through Congress on an emergency basis without any votes.

"They tried to rush the funding through the process. That alone raises a red flag this could be a boondoggle in the works," Finnigan says.

No one from the Defense Department would agree to an interview, but a spokesman told CBS News the new facility is needed so more than one defendant at a time can be tried under heavy security. The trials could take years, and the space allows for lots of observers and reporters for maximum transparency, the Pentagon says.

It looks as though there's enough skepticism on Capitol Hill that the Pentagon will have to put the project through the formal processes in January, so Congress can actually vote on whether to spend $100 million of your money on a very special courthouse.

[randalds]

I support this decision for the new courthouse. I believe that besides those that are already captured, many more terrorists will pass through its halls in the years to come.
Posted by Sevenveils at 04:32 PM : Dec 20, 2006

I agree. Terrorists like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and (no we haven't forgotten you you little as*shole) Wolfowitz. It'll serve as a nice secure place to bring in judges from the Hague to conduct trials and then to ship the above named off to be dropped into Sadr City, after they're convicted of course.

[sevenveils]

I support this decision for the new courthouse. I believe that besides those that are already captured, many more terrorists will pass through its halls in the years to come.

[randalds]

I have a quote back to ya that Bush must believe in too.

"How lucky it is for rulers, that men don't think" Adolph Hitler.

Personally I see Cheney as Goering too (fat, full of threats and darkness and possibly addicted to drugs), with Rove as Goebbels (sawed off little liar that he is) and Rice as a combination of Magda Goebbels and Eva Braun(devoted to der fuehrer and servicing him sexually at his command). Besides I could just see Condi in thigh-high leather boots with a whip. "You've been a very naughty president Bushy! A very very naughty president indeed!"

[kata8]

Everyone must watch this video, concerning 9/11 and the evidence. The links are below.

http://911truthdvd.com/

Boston Air Traffic Controller Says 9/11 An Inside Job
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2006/141206trafficcontroller.htm

[firststate]

RandalDS, not bad yourself, let the Iraqi's handle it. I'll love to see his expression when he was dropped off in sadr city. He'd probably be willing to listen to his intellectual and moral superiors and really want his daddy to rescue him.

If you've ever read any of the stuff from the Nuremberg trials, the B-C team could have xeroxed the Nazi's statements as their strategy book. Hermann Goering said, "...the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." Sounds familiar, doesn't it? DI CKhas played Goering to the current war-criminal-in-chief.

[randalds]

Couldn't have said it better myself FeelFree1. I 2nd that motion. The crimes of the Bush administration certainly do mirror the Nazi crimes in many ways and Cuba would be a wonderful place to hold a Nuremberg type trial. I would hope of course that we bring international judges in however as it'll give the trials much more credibility. Also I think a more fitting punishment then outright hanging would be to turn them over to the families of the Iraqi's they've murdered and let them punish them themselves in what ever way the choose.

[feelfree1]

I am in favor of this project. With the completion of this courtroom, we will then own a top-rate, full-service compound, with the capacity to detain, try, convict, and sentence the members of the illegitimate Bush-puppet regime.

An "illegal war of aggression" is regarded as an extremely serious offense in the eyes of U.S. ratified international law, of which, our public servants Constitutionally bound to uphold.

One relevant treaty is the Nuremberg Charter. Following WWII, the U.S. and others, used this treaty as a framework to try many top Nazi officials. The actions of these WWII Nazi, officials have many striking similarities to the heinous conduct of the Bush League and the rest of the neo-conservative/liberal movement.

Several of the leading WWII Nazi figures were sentenced to death by hanging. The globe will celebrate when our criminal "leadership" is finally brought to justice.

Guantanimo Bay would make an excellent location to process the Bush League global pirates through war-crimes tribunals. I'd even bet that Castro would extend the lease at no cost for this purpose.

[randalds]

That's why they won't bring them here for the trial catt, because it'll be more transparent. The last thing this pathetic Bush government wants is to expose more of their lies, torturing and phony charges against people they have no evidence against. They swept these people up when they invaded Afghanistan by telling the drug lords they'd pay a bounty for every Taliban member they turn over to them. Of course every poppy farmer in the country used this as a chance to get rid of anyone who'd pis*sed them off, Taliban or not. Most of the people in Gitmo are there just because they happened to be in the wrong place (their home) at the wrong time.

[catt42701]

I think the time is past asking them to find somewhere else. It's time to tell them to find a courthouse and secure holding cells for the prisoners stateside. They would be more secure stateside in the first place and it would be more transparent and there would already be somewhere for everyone to sleep.I also think it is time to write your congress person to tell them that, quickly, before they start building. Shame on them.

[agnim]

'Easy come, easy go' the tax dollars!

When the government can so easily steal citizens monies as tax dollar, why not squander it. There is always more to fleece.

Talk about 'tax and squander'! LOL

And the hypocrites do the most squandering of Americans' hard earned wealth!

[vancouverboo]

Only the biggest and bestest for Our Show Trials.

[hangelle]

What a massive waste of money! I want my tax dollars back.

[tejasdemo]

What about trying them in the White House ? That way we could hold the impeachment trial for Bush at the same time.

[tejasdemo]

I agree. Build a tent and have Cheney, Dumbya, Limpbaugh and Sean Hannity watch over them.

[firststate]

No pentagon interview, saying nothing beats their habitual lies. Does this project mean that there are company directors who haven't been repaid many times their campaign contributions? Why should Stalag Guantanamo need a new courthouse? A room big enough for a desk and a person to use a rubber stamp should be big enough. The outcomes of the trials are known now. They have been convicted by bush and await rubber stamps on the paperwork to be signed by a judge, janitor or passerby. Der wannabe Fuhrer Bush has decided they're guilty. If not he's got to explain their apprehension & dentention.
Their trial rules:
Fair trial = defendant is convicted;
Good trial = conviction on all charges;
Excellent trial = conviction on all charges and advance guilty verdicts on some future charges.

The $100 million courthouse probably wouldn't be completed before the shrub is gone. The next holder of that office might be rational so that trials not completed will be conducted constitutionally, so that the courthouse wouldn't be needed. Then it could be renovated as a spa facility for pentagon brass. It'd only take about $150 million or so more as an emergency inclusion for either KBR or Parsons.

[sandy994]

This is an outrageous waste of money. We have millions of people going to bed hungry in the United States every night. Because of this Republican administration, we have deficits we will never be able to pay off. Lets hope when the Dems become the majority in January they cut the funding for this debacle right away. It would be cheaper to give each detaniee a thousand dollars and a ticket home. We would never hear from them again.Where is the oversight? Its coming in January.

[antoniof123]

The repbulican's should never have used the word conservitive. When they did they allowed the religious nuts in because they said hey this would work for me too. Of course you know how the religious nuts work, it works for them as long as it is there way. Then add the nazi's to the party and you have a real religious mess. The longer I live the more I relize that the Republican's only want one thing and that is to be rich and in charge. Well, not for all the republican's that is because the religious nuts they are okay with being poor as long as you do as they tell you. What else is new they are the worst sort of people. You see them in every country take a look at Iraq, Iran, and any other place where most of the problems are happening. I do not know about you but I am sick and tired of them and I wish they would go and form their own country away from the rest of us.

My sources tell me that this so called court house is to be built adjacent to the existing one, and that because Castro's health is ailing him, and that there might be a need for celebration upon his death, this building would not be for court but for countless politicians boon-doggles. The contractor has yet to be named.

[randalds]

Maricopa county.

[randalds]

Just pitch a tent. That is all they need.

Posted by hvac1000 at 01:33 PM : Dec 19, 2006

That works for the good folks of Marijo county in Arizona (Phoenix). They have a tent city for jail overflow. Of course the difference there is that the sheriff (even though he's pretty much an as*s on most things) is actually going to let his prisoners have a fair trial. Something the neocons have no intention of doing.