A Kansas congresswoman is demanding to see the results of Pentagon’s survey of Fort Leavenworth as a potential site for Guantánamo Bay detainees.
On Friday, Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-Kan.) sent a letter to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter asking for a copy of the site survey.
{mosads}“Decisions that could endanger American lives and have a very detrimental impact on the local community and military installation require openness, not secrecy,” Jenkins said in a written statement Friday. “I urge the president and his administration to be fully transparent in their plans to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay.”
Jenkins’s request comes a week after Carter announced he forwarded a proposal to President Obama on potential locations to house detainees.
“Not everyone in GTMO can be safely transferred to another country, so we need an alternative,” he said in a speech in Florida, using the military acronym for Guantánamo. “I have therefore framed for the president a proposal to establish an alternative location. That plan will propose bringing those detainees to an appropriate, secure location in the United States.”
Last year, Pentagon teams toured Fort Leavenworth and sites in Colorado and South Carolina as possible replacements for Guantánamo.
Obama has been pushing to close the Cuban prison camp in his final year in office to fulfill a promise from his first campaign in 2008.
As part of that effort, transfers out of the facility to foreign countries have accelerated in recent weeks, with 16 transfers this month.
But dozens of the detainees are considered too dangerous to release and would need to be kept stateside if Guantánamo closes.
In her letter, Jenkins also urged the release of the plans to close the facility.
“I further appreciate your prompt reply, including a copy of your detailed report regarding the plan to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay and subsequent transfer of its detainees to the United States,” she wrote to Carter.