Ouch: Cost to house a captive at Guantanamo Bay is $800,000/year

[LAGC]

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - Guards get combat pay, just like troops in Afghanistan, without the risk of being blown up. Some commanders get to bring their families to this war-on-terror deployment. And each captive gets $38.45 worth of food a day.

The Pentagon detention center that started out in January 2002 as a collection of crude open-air cells guarded by Marines in a muddy tent city is today arguably the most expensive prison on Earth, costing taxpayers $800,000 annually for each of the 171 captives by Obama administration reckoning.

That's more than 30 times the cost of keeping a captive on U.S. soil.

It's still funded as an open-ended battlefield necessity, although the last prisoner arrived in March 2008. But it functions more like a gated community in an American suburb than a forward-operating base in one of Afghanistan's violent provinces.

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2011/11/08/2262689/cost-to-house-a-captive-at-guantanamo.html

Now, why in the fuck haven't we closed Guantanamo yet?

They should take up that Montana town's offer and house them at that Two Rivers Detention Center: http://www.tworiversauthority.org/Detention-Center.html

[El Jefe]

What did it cost taxpayers to keep you incarcerated? (twice) :loser:

[nfa1934]

That article is so full of lies and misrepresentations, I don't even know where to begin (and I actually know, I used to fucking work there). First, when I was there, nobody got hazardous duty pay for working in the camp. That may have changed (and should have changed, with the constant assaults on the guard force), but that's only $225/month. This article makes it seem like it is a large chunk of money by listing total salary per month instead of telling you the real amount. When referencing "the same hazardous duty pay as they'd pull in Kabul" they are trying to make it seem like those assigned to Guantanmao are getting all the same perks as being deployed to a war zone. This isn't true either. The biggest bonus for being in a war zone is tax exempt status, which no one at Guantanamo gets. Hazardous duty pay is nothing compared to the tax exemption.

This Zanetti jackass also references "a slow-motion Berlin airlift" when talking about the barge supply system. Guess what? The barges and planes are going to do that anyway, just like they did before the camp was there. Maybe he doesn't understand that there is a fucking Naval base there and the activities in the detention camp are only a part of it. When I was there, a lot of Army officers had trouble understanding this concept. He talks about bringing family. Guess what? It's a PCS move for some people assigned long-term. You almost always take your family, whether it's Kansas or Italy or even fucking Guantanamo. As far as the amenities, what are service members supposed to do in their down time, stare at the wall? I did a lot of scuba diving there, and I paid for it myself. The government didn't buy or even subsidize my dive gear. The theater he mentions? It's an outdoor screen with bleacher seating. This guy would have you believe it's a fucking IMAX. All the other amenities are in the Navy area. Do you know why those amenities are there? Because it's a fucking Naval base and you will find the same thing on every other Naval base.

Everything in this article is a misrepresentation made to imply that service members are down there lounging around in a taxpayer funded luxury resort. Complete bullshit.

And to close, housing these lawfully detained illegal combatants in the United States would be far more costly, both in terms of money and in precedent for dealing with enemy prisoners of war and illegal combatants.

[LAGC]

I guess I just don't understand why we even have a naval base on Cuba, anyway. Isn't Florida close enough if anything goes down? Or is it more the point of having a beach-head for a future invasion of Cuba?

How would housing prisoners here on CONUS cost more? I can see stationing military police to guard them, but there are numerous high-security prisons here on American soil empty and waiting for prisoners. Surely it wouldn't cost anywhere near $800,000 a head.

[slamfire51]

IMO, the costs are small compared to them destroying property (i.e.Twin Towers) and the loss of American lives if they weren't detained.

I say let them rot on a scenic island.

[mriddick]

I would bet $100 the numbers are wrong, NFA is right.

[nfa1934]

They cannot go into a normal civilian prison or an existing military prison housing convicted US service members. There is no way that is allowed under Geneva. So, you end up building a new facility or renovating an existing facility. There is no way that building a brand new "Guantanamo" on the US mainland is going to cost less than simply continuing to run the already existing one. The only possible savings would be resupply costs, and like I mentioned earlier, those are negligible when factored into the total base resupply. It just doesn't cost that much to send a barge from Florida to Cuba, Zanetti is exaggerating on that point. Guards will still get their paltry $225 a month hazardous duty pay (if they even actually started getting it after I left) in CONUS. That pay is not location dependent, it is task dependent. You will not only be moving the families of officers assigned long-term, you will be moving the families of the entire guard force since it will then be a PCS move for everybody because they will not do short-term deployments to a prison in the US. I can see every current cost remaining, with the addition of new facilities costs and the cost of moving. Closing Guantanamo would be extremely expensive, far more so than continuing in the current set-up. Then there is the increased cost of detainee legal shenanigans. They caused enough trouble where they are; moving them to US soil would just re-open every argument that's already been settled just because their attorneys will argue that there has been a change of status that warrants review of every currently settled issue.

Also, I noticed the article mentioned a lot of privately owned businesses that provide amenities, like McDonalds and the pub. They built their own facilities just like any business in the US or on any other base and they pay rent for being there. The government didn't pay for a McDonalds or a pub, like this article implies. Also, the article mentions fishing, golf, diving, and beach parties. None of this is government funded. Like I said before, I bought my own dive gear paid for my own tank fills and did my diving entirely on my own dime. Likewise the fishing isn't government funded. Service members pay for their own fishing gear, boat rental, etc. The golf isn't any cost to the government. It's just a few holes and flags in an open area without any course maintenance. There is nothing to maintain. You have to carry around a scrap of astroturf to hit the ball from and you use your own clubs. It's basically just an area where they let people hit golf balls. As far as beach parties are concerned, there is absolutely no government expense. The taxpayer has no part in a group of service members gathering on the beach (which is already there anyway) and drinking their own alcohol and eating their own food purchased with their own money. The lies in this article make my blood boil.

[Mark Ducati]

So basically, it costs $136.8 million for us to run Gitmo?

I guess that number comes from salaries of ALL the soldiers/employees/food/materials/vehicles... all things considered to comprise the "overhead" costs.... take the $800,000 and multiply by 171 is how I came up with the 137 million.

If they added another 171 prisoners, sure there would be additional costs for food and perhaps some more guards/soldiers... but that $800,000 per prisoner # would be cut in half.

As stated above, lots of misrepresentations... or perhpas misinterpretations?

[nfa1934]

Also consider that there were around 300 more detainees (who should still be there).

[El Laton Caliente]

Since most of the detainees were fighting out of a recognized uniform they fall under the heading of spys and saboteurs and are subject to summary execution under the Geneva Convention. But, are Al Q and the Taliban signatories to the Geneva Convention? No. So it doesn't even apply.