D.C. Will Take Gitmo Detainees...Kind Of

Ever since President Barack Obama announced that he would shut down the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, law enforcement officials and politicians across the country have been fighting to out-NIMBY each other in refusing to house the 241 detainees that would need to be tried stateside. Virginia officials have been especially adamant about the issue, lining up to oppose sending any of the suspected terrorists to a jail in Alexandria. The issue has even become a point of contention in the coming Democratic gubernatorial primary.

In a recent interview with the Washington Times, though, D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles stated that the District would accept Guantanamo detainees. Well, kind of. Nickles spends most of the interview complaining about 10 Colombian narcoterrorists housed in the District, claiming that having them here has provoked a number of security-related headaches for the city's Department of Corrections. He also criticizes President Obama for not having a detailed plan for shutting down Guantanamo, but he then goes on to say that the District would take detainees if asked: "If he [Obama] said he'd want us to do it, we'd do it. But I think I'd sit down with [U.S. Attorney General] Eric Holder...and say, 'Now, let me ask you a few questions and see what the answers are here.'"

Admittedly, no one has actually brought up the issue of bringing any Gitmo detainees to the District. After all, given our own longstanding struggles to keep order in the D.C. Jail, we don't think that anyone has any faith that housing sensitive detainees would be feasible idea. It is nice that Nickles didn't automatically jump on the NIMBY bandwagon, though. It's frustrating to see so many anti-Guantanamo pols clam up when asked what should be done with the detainees who would have to be shipped somewhere after the detention center's closing.