A deal is a deal: U.S. will buy prison even if it won’t hold terror suspects

[OneAngryDemocrat]

Source: Sauk Valley Newspapers

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration plans to buy a state prison in rural Thomson, regardless of whether Congress allows terrorism suspects to be transferred there, a Justice Department official said Thursday.

The plan was outlined in a letter to U.S. Rep. Don Manzullo, R-Egan, who supports turning Thomson Correctional Center into a federal prison but opposes holding detainees there.

In the letter, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich spelled out the administration’s intent to go ahead with plans to buy the nearly empty prison, even if lawmakers refuse to approve its use as a new home for detainees at the military-run prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

At the least, Weich said, the federal Bureau of Prisons intends to use the facility for high-security inmates.

Read more: http://www.saukvalley.com/articles/2010/03/19/89613038/index.xml