So what would happen if Barack Obama were to keep his promise to shut down the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and release enemy combatants housed there? According to the Bush administration, these terrorist sympathizers would immediately “set out to kill Americans or other innocent civilians around the world.”

That bleak assessment comes from a batch of documents from the Department of Defense (DOD) recently obtained by Judicial Watch. Overall, they detail the policies of the Bush administration related to the detention of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, as well as the significant risks to the general population if the detainees were released.

The records, which we got through the Freedom of Information Act, include a “Summary of Conclusions” for a June 19, 2003, meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) Principals Committee, which included top Bush administration officials, as well as a February 4, 2004, draft presentation entitled “Guantanamo Detainees” that was previously marked “Not for Public Dissemination.”

Here are a few of the highlights:

•The NSC Summary of Conclusions includes a detailed list of Bush administration officials who attended the June 19, 2003, meeting, including: Former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who chaired the meeting; Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; Former Attorney General John Ashcroft; Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage; and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, among others. The meeting included representatives from the Departments of State, Defense, Treasury, and Justice as well as the Office of Vice President, CIA, White House Counsel, Joint Chiefs of Staff and National Security Council.

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In an interesting development the House Armed Services Committee unanimously approved legislation that would block Gitmo, Illinois from coming to fruition. In fact, they’ve blocked any Gitmo terrorist from being transferred anywhere into the interior of the USA. This is a blow to Obama’s desires to shut Gitmo down and to bring terrorists to a prison near you.

Wednesday the committee approved a defense bill for 2011 that includes language to prevent moving detainees into any US facility inside our borders and also blocked any funding to even study the possibility.

The bill does, however, state that the Secretary of Defense must submit to Congress a full report that “adequately justifies” any such proposal in the future which seems to signal that they haven’t shut the door on the possibility of a later opening of a detainee facility inside US borders.

This would appear to be a case of Congress telling the president that he overstepped his position when he announced that he had the power to transfer terrorists to the states.

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Some Defense Department lawyers are worried. Actually, quite a few of them are. They see a train wreck coming with the Obama administration’s evolving Guantanamo Bay detainee policies. Since it is DOD lawyers tasked with much of the footwork for administration decisions, they see firsthand how disorganized, inept, and ideologically extreme the handling of the issue has been. The DOJ, now thoroughly politicized and partisan under Eric Holder, is lock step with Obama’s White House on the issue, and is thoroughly at odds with its legal counterparts in the DOD. At a time when former Guantanamo Bay detainees are battling US forces in Afghanistan, and Jihadists are resurgent worldwide, the country can ill afford the administration’s criminalizing of admitted terrorists or of enemy combatants captured in battle against US forces.

What DOD lawyers are worried about are second-order effects. Namely, the unanticipated consequences of decisions made without due consideration or examination of facts. They are deeply concerned that the administration’s political appointees making decisions on the issue are as likely to be chosen for ideological purity as they are for their acumen on applicable laws. The political appointees are perceived by many in the DOD as caring more for their political ideological creed than for the safety of US citizens, or for the responsible stewardship of tax dollars. It is Leftist canon that Guantanamo Bay be closed, the risks and consequences be damned. Every policy decision pursuing that goal equates to thousands of man hours for DOD lawyers and millions of dollars.

DOD attorneys, including prosecutors and defense attorneys of all political stripes, are of the opinion that closing Guantanamo Bay is an illogical and irresponsible political move made without the facts, and one that will cost billions. No stateside facility has the resources Guantanamo Bay does. As for which stateside facility should replace Guantanamo, the administration cannot make up its mind. As Obama’s minions position for optimum political influence, they have flitted from military sites in Leavenworth, Kansas and Charleston AFB, South Carolina, to civilian facilities in Standish, Michigan and Thomson, Illinois.

The MSM has been telling Americans less that the truth on the detainee issue. Americans have not been told how well thought out was the construction of Guantanamo Bay. Its courtroom was designed by the William and Mary Law School – it is state of the art, capable of handling testimony involving top secret evidence. It has a media center. As for the detainees, forget the horror stories that represent the disinformation tactics of terrorist sympathizers who aim to sway public opinion. Detainees receive the best in medical and dental care. They have daily access to soccer fields. They have exercise areas that overlook the Caribbean, books and movies, as well as a menu where they can choose from several entrée’s cooked to Islamic Halal standards.

They are not tortured and they never were.

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It’s almost hard to believe but Wednesday, January 20 marks exactly one year since President Bush left the White House.

During his last public ceremony as commander in chief, he was booed by thousands of Americans who simutaneously cheered for Barack Obama as he was sworn into office on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

Except for a June 17 speech in Erie, Pennsylvania in which Bush defended his policies and criticized Obama’s, the former president has been remarkably silent about his successor. He has not fired back at Obama despite the new administration inappropriately blaming Bush for all of their failures.

One year after taking office however, Obama has done a total reversal on his isolationist, non-interventionist foreign policy, and is now pushing President Bush’s neo-conservative philosophy as a justification for starting a new war in Afghanistan. What the Democratic Party once criticized as an over-simplified good vs. evil argument has become the cornerstone of Obama’s reasoning.

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