PRESIDENT CHOSE ILLINOIS PRISON TO HOUSE 1/3 OF GITMO DETAINEES

The tireless work of South Carolina’s senior U.S. Senator appears to have kept suspected terrorists from being housed in South Carolina.

After heavy lobbying by Sen. Lindsey Graham, President Barack Obama agreed not to send nearly one-third of the detainees at the Guantanamo Bay military prison facility to the Charleston Naval Brig.

The Obama Administration instead opted to transfer between 35 and 90 detainees to the Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson, Ill.

“I spoke to the president about Charleston a couple weeks ago,” Graham told McClatchy. “He listened intently as I said I thought Charleston is not an appropriate site for long-term detention. I made my best case. I appreciate the president hearing what I had to say.”

Numerous South Carolina officials expressed their concern about bringing Guantanamo prisoners to the Charleston brig, namely because of the facility’s location to a large population center.

The president ordered the Guantanamo facility closed by January 2010, but said that date will likely be pushed back to later in the year. Obama said the measure is “essential” to removing a key al-Qaeda recruiting tool.

But, while Graham is happy with the president’s choice not to send terrorists to South Carolina, he is still concerned about Obama’s decision to try the alleged plotters of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in federal court in New York rather than before a military tribunal.

“From the unprecedented decision to try enemy combatants captured on the battlefield in civilian courts to the conflicting testimony of Administration officials on long term detention to the alarming number of detainees who have been determined eligible for release, I fear the Administration has lost its bearings in an effort to close Guantanamo as quickly as possible,” Graham said in a statement Tuesday.

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