The white elephant at Guantanamo Bay
By Dale McFeatters
Scripps Howard News Service
The prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was a blow to the United States' reputation for punctilious observance of human rights and the rule of law. Now it turns out it was a serious blow to the wallet as well.
According to a Washington Post analysis of spending on the prison, construction, operating costs and classified funding of a secret prison for high-valued detainees ``easily soars toward $2 billion."
The largest sum post-9/11 was at least $500 million for construction, such as $219 million on the prison itself; $144 million on improvements to the base, including roads and construction; and $114 million in renovation and construction of base housing.
And this is for a detention facility that, at its peak in May 2003, held 680 inmates. It now holds 181 and would be closed if Congress and the Obama administration could agree on another place to put the prisoners.
The Post said that $690,000 was spent to build a new headquarters for the Joint Detention Group, but it was completed three months after President Barack Obama announced his intention to close the prison and was never occupied.
By itself, the idea of using Guantanamo Bay as a detention center for suspected terrorists was not a bad one, but the secrecy and arrogance that characterized its early operation irreparably tainted it.
The Bush administration early on said that since Guantanamo Bay was not part of the United States proper ― we lease it from Cuba ― U.S. laws, including basic constitutional protections, did not apply. The Supreme Court finally ruled otherwise.
The Bush administration also decreed that international treaties like the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners did not apply either. And its first attempt at creating military tribunals was embarrassingly one-sided, unfair and arbitrary.
The photos out of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq showed that the U.S. was not above degrading and humiliating prisoners, and it was assumed we would do likewise at Guantanamo Bay. The heavily restricted access the Bush administration granted the prisoners' lawyers, journalists and international observers almost guaranteed that allegations of harsh and abusive treatment would be believed.
If the government proceeds with its plans to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and his co-defendants in civilian court, the $13.4 million courthouse built especially for their military trials may never be used.
Similarly, a barracks renovated at a cost of $2.2 million to house lawyers, journalists and dignitaries during those trials might also go unused. With fewer guards needed, the $7.3 million baseball fields and artificial-turf football field will go unused as well.
Guantanamo Bay was an expensive lesson in what happens when we dilute our principles in the name of security and expediency. Let's hope we learned it.
Dale McFeatters is an editorial writer of Scripps Howard News Service (www.scrippsnews.com).