WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Sam Brownback today invited President-Elect Obama and his advisors to tour the Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth. Obama was interview yesterday by George Stephanopoulos on ABC News' This Week and expressed the challenges with closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay within the first 100 days of his administration.

"I am glad President-elect Obama acknowledges the challenges our country faces in closing the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay and I invite him and his team to join me in Kansas to tour the Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth," said Brownback. "I would be honored to show him first hand why Fort Leavenworth is not an acceptable facility to house enemy combatants and he will find that once you see the base up close, it's hard to show why terror suspects should be housed in Kansas."

Brownback has several times toured the Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth and, in consultation with officials at the Defense Department, concluded Fort Leavenworth is not equipped to handle those currently held at Guantanamo Bay.

"Transferring Guantanamo detainees to Fort Leavenworth would be unwise and unsafe," said Brownback. "If the holding facility at Guantanamo Bay is closed, a new facility should be built, designed specifically to handle detainees. For good reasons, federal law prohibits the co-mingling of military prisoners with a detainee population and detainees to Fort Leavenworth would disrupt the Fort's primary mission as the intellectual center of the Army at the Command General Staff College."

Brownback has repeatedly stated that Fort Leavenworth is not a suitable location for enemy combatants because the disciplinary barracks are primarily a medium security facility; the base is primarily focused in training officers at the Command General Staff College; the proximity of the base to a community airport, farms and the surrounding community; and the lack of medical facilities on site, which would require transporting combatants through town to be treated in community hospitals.

   
Sam Brownback
United States Senator - Kansas
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