Trying KSM and His Co-conspirators in Federal Court in New York: At What Cost?

posted at 6:37 pm on January 5, 2010 by Howard Portnoy
[ Homeland Security ]   

Originally, when Barack Obama and his Attorney General, Eric Holder, announced their plan to grant Kalid Sheik Muhammad’s fondest wish and try him in a federal court of law instead of before a military tribunal, the political lines were drawn in the sand. New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, long a Democrat in Independents’ clothing, remarked that “it is fitting that 9/11 suspects face justice near the World Trade Center site where so many New Yorkers were murdered.”

Also in favor of the administration’s foolhardy decision was senior U.S. senator from New York, Chuck Schumer. At least he was gung-ho till he got a look at the likely bill for securing the city during the months the trial will take. As reported in mid-Novemeber by WCBS , the New York CBS affiliate, Schumer claimed the costs would run “somewhere in the ballpark of $75 million.”

Wrong ballpark, it now appears. According to The Hill, Schumer this week asked the White House to add a separate line item to its 2011 fiscal year budget to reimburse the city of New York for its law enforcement expenditures during the trial. How much is needed? Several hundred million dollars should do the trick.

Just like that, the adminstration that does nothing so well as it spends taxpayers’ money is being encouraged by one of its most ardent supporters to zap it to the American people again—all in the interests of conducting a show trial to demonstrate mainly that Barack Obama is someone other than George W. Bush.

Schumer, who inexplicably continues to maintain that “these are federal terror cases that will bring to justice . . . the evil men behind the attack on our nation on 9-11,” understands that his political hide is up for grabs if the city ends up footing the bill.

The new cost projections have touched off a firestorm in Congress, with Republicans pointing out how much less expensive it would be to conduct the trials at the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, where a tribunal apparatus is already in place, than to bring the suspects here.

New calls are also being made to reverse Holder’s and Obama’s decision on the grounds of general logic. Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) issued harsh words for the administration’s overall anti-terrorism policy, following Obama’s botched handling of the failed Christmas Day attempt to blow up a plane en route to Detroit. Said Boehner:

The Administration’s response following this attempted attack is consistent with its dangerous decision to close the terrorist prison at Guantánamo Bay and bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 terrorists to trial in the United States through civilian courts, rather than the military commissions already in place.

We know the decision to close this prison has not stopped al Qaeda from plotting attacks on Americans, turning these terrorists over to other countries is not working, and we shouldn’t import them into the United States.

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