Gazette Opinion: Say no to Montana Gitmo
By The Gazette Staff
If the Hardin economic development agency wanted to generate coast-to-coast publicity for the availability of prison space in its new, unused detention facility, it succeeded.
If the Hardin City Council and Two Rivers Authority actually want to house Guantanamo Bay detainees at the facility, they have seriously underestimated the risk and the enormous community impact that would result from bringing longtime war prisoners - suspected international terrorists - to our area.
An Associated Press account of Hardin's interest in housing Gitmo detainees in its empty $27 million jail was posted on dozens of news Web sites, including The Washington Post, Fox News, CBS and MSNBC. Newspapers all across America reported it under "oddities" and "weird news" with headlines such as "Montana town wants its empty jail to be the new Gitmo."
The idea of moving suspected international terrorists to Montana united the state's entire congressional delegation in opposition.
Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., said the detainees are terrorists and added: "We should be doing everything possible to keep them out of our country, let alone our state."
Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont. is "against any proposal to bring Guantanamo detainees to Montana."
Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., wrote a letter to Two Rivers, that declared, "housing potential terrorists in Montana is not good for our state."
Both Baucus and Montana U.S. Marshal Dwight MacKay, a Bush administration appointee, listed significant security concerns about bringing Gitmo detainees to Montana:
• These detainees are considered some of the most dangerous people in the world.
• Security considerations would be monumental and would require far more than a regular detention facility could provide.
• Those accused but not yet charged of war crimes that are housed in a Montana facility would then fall within the jurisdiction of our Montana Federal District Courts, where judges already have the fifth-busiest trial docket in the nation.
• Ferrying those prisoners between the Hardin jail and U.S. District Court in Billings for hearings raises security concerns.
• The federal courthouse in Billings doesn't allow for prisoners to be completely separated from the public.
• President Barack Obama has ordered that the detainees be returned to their home countries or moved somewhere besides Gitmo by January 2010. That timeframe is much shorter than the time it will take to build a new federal courthouse in Billings.
In his letter, Baucus pledged to "work in every way to help support your efforts to find occupants for the Hardin detention facility that will also be compatible with the needs and safety of our Montana communities."
Marketing a detention center built for 460
low- to medium-security inmates has proven more difficult than any of the local promoters or private investors anticipated. Almost any other prisoners would bring lower security risks than the Gitmo crowd, and there are other needs for detention.
One need in Montana is for expanded addiction treatment of DUI offenders so that they all will complete treatment before they could be back on the roads. When the state decides to make this investment in treatment, the Hardin jail would be an ideal location. Way too many felony DUIs occur in our area. The state's two DUI programs are in Glendive and Warm Springs. A Hardin-based program would cut travel costs and help ensure that every convict gets the treatment proven effective in preventing most from reoffending.
That's just one idea. As Two Rivers continues to seek business, it needs other ideas and should drop the idea of becoming the Montana Gitmo.
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