Jon Kyl, January 4, 2010

Just weeks after announcing that five terrorists currently detained at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility will come to New York City to stand trial in civilian courts, President Obama has said that more Guantanamo detainees will be coming to America -- this time to a small town on the Illinois-Iowa border.

During his campaign, President Obama vowed to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, and shortly after his inauguration, he set a deadline of January 2010. That arbitrary deadline won’t be met; but with it looming, the President announced plans to move terrorist detainees to the Thomson Correctional Center in northern Illinois.

It’s the latest move in what, so far, has been a piecemeal -- and dangerous -- approach to closing the facility: bring some detainees to New York City, send others to an Illinois prison, pay island nations to take some off our hands (as we did with Bermuda and Palau), and send others one-by-one to countries willing to take them. It’s not clear how any of this is making our country safer.

In fact, bringing terrorists to a United States prison could expose us to more harm. The Illinois prison will become an immediate terrorist target. Moreover, it is quite possible that courts will determine that, by virtue of their presence on U.S. soil, these terrorists are owed additional "rights" not currently available to them at Guantanamo Bay.

President Obama would like us to believe that there is little risk that a court would go so far as to order the release of one of the detainees, who will no doubt be represented by legions of attorneys. He is gambling that the Justice Department can successfully defend each of the legal challenges that will be filed. But despite the best efforts of government lawyers and prosecutors, we’ve seen these challenges succeed before. The difference is that the stakes will now be much higher.

The safety of our country, of course, is the utmost concern and the reason why we maintain the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. The individuals there are dangerous and include al Qaeda leaders and Osama bin Laden lieutenants. Even those considered "safe" for release can pose a threat: the Department of Defense reported last year that 61 detainees returned to the battlefield after their release.

In the face of this sobering statistic, it is remarkable that President Obama continues to treat terrorists like common criminals. Even though we have military tribunals designed for prosecuting war criminals, he would prefer to try them in civilian court. Even though we have a secure military facility in Guantanamo, he would rather house them in Illinois. At every turn, he appears to forget that we are at war.

The administration will face other problems as well, starting with the cost of upgrading and securing the facility (millions of taxpayer dollars).

There are also a number of unanswered questions about the decision to import terrorist detainees to America’s heartland. What will happen to them once they are here? Will they be tried in military commissions or civilian courts? What about the detainees who can’t be tried but also can’t be released? And what about those who are ordered released?

Members of the President’s cabinet recently wrote to the Illinois governor: "The President has no intention of releasing any detainees in the United States." Maybe "no intention," but what if the court orders it?

Unfortunately, it appears that President Obama’s "plan" is to move the terrorists first and answer the tough questions later.

The real national security issue is the existence of terrorists who wish to do us harm, not the existence of Guantanamo Bay, as members of the Obama administration would have us believe. We shouldn’t let a campaign promise to close the facility get in the way of victory in the war against terrorists. President Obama shouldn’t sacrifice national security in order to fulfill his pledge to close Guantanamo Bay.

Senator Jon Kyl, a Republican, represents Arizona in the U.S. Senate. He serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Finance Committee, and the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.