Not in my back yard.

As high-profile Republicans increasingly join Democrats and civil rights groups in denouncing the U.S. holding of alleged terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, a proposal to move detainees to this historic Army post in the geographic heart of America is gaining widespread political support.

Under the plan, several hundred foreign detainees could be transported from the U.S. detention facility in Cuba, a prison that has evoked worldwide outrage amid allegations of strong-arm interrogation tactics, to the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks here, the Department of Defense’s only maximum-security prison on U.S. soil.

The plan has drawn criticism from many residents around Ft. Leavenworth.

While many of the detainees have yet to be formally charged, those who could be moved to the military prison, in the center of a small base just outside Kansas City, stand accused of crimes ranging from helping plan the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to working to establish Al Qaeda networks around the world.

The move, supporters say, could quell criticism that the United States is using the isolated Guantanamo prison to hold detainees in substandard conditions and to use torture to obtain information. And although experts caution the transfer of these prisoners may do little to change the legal rights they are currently afforded, the proposal is reviving debate about how much — if any — constitutional protection these prisoners should have while in U.S. custody.

In addition, the potential detainee transfer has led many to question whether housing such prisoners in a section of the nation where there is little defense of key infrastructure would expose small Midwestern towns as easy targets for terrorists.

“The prison holds some of the world’s most dangerous terrorists from around the globe,” said Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), whose district sits across the Missouri River from the Ft. Leavenworth prison. “They have threatened Americans and in some instances they have killed Americans. Having terrorists held so close to Americans would pose a significant risk if they were to escape or if the prison were to become a target for other terrorists.”

Proposals to move prisoners to Ft. Leavenworth initially garnered wide support among Democrats and civil and constitutional rights groups. Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) summed up their argument: “Since the time that captured ‘enemy combatants’ were first brought to Guantanamo Bay in 2002, the detainment facility has undermined America’s image as the model of justice and protector of human rights around the world.”

But now an expanding cadre of high-profile Republicans has urged that Guantanamo be shuttered, making it increasingly likely that the Leavenworth prison could be used.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates testified to Congress that he has been pushing to close Guantanamo and that any war crimes trials held there would lack international credibility because of the facility’s “taint.” Former Secretary of State Colin Powell urges a shutdown; presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) backs proposals to shift detainees to Ft. Leavenworth; and even President Bush, according to White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe, has “long expressed a desire” to close Guantanamo.

Janet Wray, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks, said prison officials were not commenting on the potential move. Yet a look at the prison by the numbers illustrates that an influx of the estimated 360 detainees in Guantanamo would require a shifting of some of Ft. Leavenworth’s current inmates to other federal facilities. Members of Congress recently estimated that the prison has space to take on 80 or so more prisoners right now.

Leavenworth, Kan., the community that sits just outside the gates of the Army base that shares its name, has for decades been synonymous with prisons. In addition to the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks, the town is home to a federal penitentiary and a holding facility for prisoners of the U.S. Marshals Service. Just outside the city limits is a maximum-security Kansas penitentiary. Residents say they remember as children learning to distinguish between different types of warning sirens: one for fires, one for tornadoes, one for prison breaks.

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Story

Ahmed Belbacha, an inmate at Guantanamo from Algeria, would rather stay at Gitmo in solitary confinement than return to his native country where the authorities or Islamists will torture or kill him.

An inmate of Guantanamo Bay who spends 22 hours each day in an isolation cell is fighting for the right to stay in the notorious internment camp.

Ahmed Belbacha fears that he will be tortured or killed if the United States goes ahead with plans to return him to his native Algeria.

The Times has learnt that Mr Belbacha, who lived in Britain for three years, has filed an emergency motion at the US Court of Appeals in Washington DC asking for his transfer out of Guantanamo to be halted. He was cleared for release from Camp Delta in February and his lawyers believe that his return to Algerian custody is imminent.

Mr Belbacha says that if he returns to Algeria, he faces the threat of torture by security services and murder by Islamist terrorists.

Zachary Katznelson, senior counsel with the human rights lawyers Reprieve and Mr Belbacha’s lawyer, has asked the US courts to block any transfer. “Ahmed is being held in camp six, the harshest part of Guantanamo,” he said. “His cell is all steel, there are no windows, he is not allowed to communicate with other prisoners and he gets just two hours exercise each day in a metal cage.

“He says his cell in Guantanamo is like a grave and that although it sounds crazy he would rather stay in those conditions than go back to Algeria. The fact is that he is really, really scared about what might happen to him in Algeria.”

I guess Gitmo isn’t as bad as some other places.

Story.

A federal appeals court ordered the government yesterday to turn over virtually all its information on Guantánamo detainees who are challenging their detention, rejecting an effort by the Justice Department to limit disclosures and setting the stage for new legal battles over the government’s reasons for holding the men indefinitely.

The ruling, which came in one of the main court cases dealing with the fate of the detainees, effectively set the ground rules for scores of cases by detainees challenging the actions of Pentagon tribunals that decide whether terror suspects should be held as enemy combatants.

It was the latest of a series of stinging legal challenges to the administration’s detention policies that have amplified pressure on the Bush administration to find some alternative to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where about 360 men are now being held at the United States naval base.

A three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Washington unanimously rejected a government effort to limit the information it must turn over to the court and lawyers for the detainees.

The court said meaningful review of the military tribunals would not be possible “without seeing all the evidence, any more than one can tell whether a fraction is more or less than half by looking only at the numerator and not the denominator.”

Advocates for detainees have criticized the tribunals since they were instituted in 2004 because the terror suspects held at Guantánamo have not been permitted lawyers during the proceedings and have not been allowed to see much of the evidence against them.

P. Sabin Willett, a Boston lawyer who argued the case for detainees, called the ruling “a resounding rejection of the government’s effort to hide the truth.”

Story

Under the terms of a plea deal Australian terrorist detainee David Hicks has received a sentence of seven years.

It’s not clear if he will be given credit for the five years he has already served, but he will serve his sentence in Australia under the terms of the agreement.

Update: The plea deal allowed the sentence to be capped at nine months to be served in Australia.