Bauer requests S.C. top officials to meet

Lt. Governor André Bauer asked Friday that Governor Mark Sanford, State Adjutant General Stan Spears, and Attorney General Henry McMaster meet with him immediately so the state’s top executive, legal, and military leaders can determine that civilian security is not threatened by the Obama Administration’s potential transfer to the Charleston Naval Brig of terrorists now confined in the Guantanamo base in Cuba.

Lt. Governor Bauer said:

South Carolina’s leaders need to come together to act in concert.  Charleston is one of the top-tier tourist destination cities in our country, and we cannot let this issue jeopardize the state’s economic interests concentrated there in its shipping and aeronautics industries.

I hope the Attorney General can obtain an emergency injunction against the Department of Defense or whoever is responsible for making the actual decision to transfer the detainees.  This injunction would bar the transfer until he concludes his investigation into the safety of the detention facilities. General Stan Spears’ experience in leading our National Guard troops will be invaluable in this task, especially in light of recent reports that loads of ammunition, grenades, and other materials have been smuggled off the base and stored nearby apparently for sale on the black market.

The state’s political and business leadership should also be mobilized to ask the state’s two senior Democrats in Washington—Congressman Clyburn and Congressman John Spratt—to use their influence with President Obama to remove South Carolina from the list of proposed transfer sites.

I want to thank Sen. Ronnie Cromer for having had the foresight last session to introduce S305, which is a concurrent resolution asking the President to drop Charleston from the list of potential sites.

His legislation noted that an assessment of 516 detainees by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point identified only six detainees who posed no risk to the United States; and that 14 of the most dangerous, uniquely lethal terrorists in the world are currently being held at Guantanamo Bay, including three 9/11 co-conspirators. Furthermore, 60 detainees released from Guantanamo have been killed or recaptured after taking up arms against allied forces in and around Afghanistan.