Kansas Governor Doesn't Want Gitmo Detainees

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MELISSA BLOCK, host:

President Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney today gave opposing views on the issue of whether detainees at Guantanamo can safely be housed in U.S. prisons. Here's the president.

President BARACK OBAMA: We're demanded by justice and national security. We will seek to transfer some detainees to the same type of facilities in which we hold all manner of dangerous and violent criminals within our borders, namely highly secure prisons that ensure the public safety.

BLOCK: And here's Dick Cheney.

Vice President DICK CHENEY: I think the president will find upon reflection that to bring the worst of the worst terrorists inside the United States would be cause for great danger and regret in the years to come.

BLOCK: One of the prisons mentioned as a possible site for Guantanamo detainees is the U.S. disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. It's the only maximum security facility within the Department of Defense. We're going to get reaction to that idea from the Governor of Kansas, Mark Parkinson. Welcome to the program.

Governor MARK PARKINSON (Kansas): Well, thank you for having me, Melissa.

BLOCK: And what do you say to that, should some Guantanamo detainees be moved to Fort Leavenworth, do you think?

Gov. PARKINSON: We don't believe so. As President Obama stated in his speech, if these prisoners are moved, they need to be sent to highly secure prisons. The military prison at Fort Leavenworth is not a highly secure prison and really wouldn't meet the criteria that President Obama has set out.

BLOCK: Not highly secure, but it's a maximum security facility, the only one within the Pentagon.

Gov. PARKINSON: Well, it may meet some line item definition of being a maximum security prison, but in reality it is a dormitory style type facility that is not in any way a maximum security prison in the sense that most Americans would think of as a maximum security prison being. It's a very open facility that we believe would place our local citizens at risk if the Guantanamo Bay prisoners were transferred there.

BLOCK: I was reading some comments that had been published earlier this year in the Leavenworth Times, the local paper. Opinion seems to be mixed on this, but there were some people from the community who said, look, we're a prison city, that's what we do. One of them said - this is a retiree who helped build the facility and a military man who said, we know the capabilities of the barrack staff to handle this situation. We're behind this effort. Do you think there is some public support for moving the prisoners there?

Gov. PARKINSON: If there's public support, it's minimal. You know, there's some confusion between the federal U.S. penitentiary in Leavenworth, which is a highly secure facility, and the military facility that's at Fort Leavenworth, which is not nearly secure enough to handle the Guantanamo Bay prisoners. So, while there may be an isolated individual or two in Leavenworth that thinks it's a good idea, I think the overwhelming majority of folks in Leavenworth, as well as across the state of Kansas, would be that it's not a good idea to move those prisoners here.

BLOCK: What about putting them at the other facility that you mentioned, which you seem to be saying is more secure?

Gov. PARKINSON: Well, I think that would be unprecedented. Our federal penitentiaries are set up for U.S. prisoners. And I think that the appropriate step to take would be to keep these within the confines of a military prison. And the military prison that we have here in Kansas is simply not the right one.

BLOCK: There are certainly plenty of foreign prisoners, including convicted terrorists, who are kept within the U.S. prison system, most notably at the supermax facility in Florence, Colorado, though.

Gov. PARKINSON: Well, that may be the case, but I can assure you that we have no interest in these 240 prisoners being moved to Kansas.

BLOCK: Governor, if not there, where do you think they should go? Whose backyard do you think they should land in?

Gov. PARKINSON: Well, I certainly don't have an inventory of what the highly secure military prisons are in the United States, but I would agree with the criteria that the president has set out, which is that there needs to be a very highly secure area. If that prison doesn't exist, it would need to be built or Guantanamo Bay would simply need to be left open.

BLOCK: That's Kansas Governor Mark Parkinson. We asked a spokesperson at Fort Leavenworth about the governor's assertion that the U.S. disciplinary barracks are not secure enough to receive Guantanamo detainees. We were told that some inmates do live in a, quote, "campus style," and that the majority are under a minimum or medium custody level. About one in five of the 430 U.S. military inmates there are held at the maximum custody level - five have been sentenced to death.

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