Sacia strongly supports plan to buy Thomson prison for Gitmo detainees

8 comments November 17th, 2009

Not all Republicans have lined up in opposition to the federal government buying Thomson state prison and using it as a federal maximum security prison with a separate wing for Taliban and Al Qaida terrorists currently housed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. President Obama has pledged to close the U.S. prison in Cuba by the end of the year.

State Rep. Jim Sacia, R-Pecatonica, represents the Thomson area. The career FBI agent, now retired, strongly supports the plan, and in unusually blunt language.

“If we pass up this opportunity I think we’re buffoons. We have a state of the art facility designed as maximum security prison that is the second largest expenditure for a building in the history of th state of Illinois. It has been sitting mostly vacant for eight years,” Sacia said.

“We have an opportunity to bring 2,000 to 3,000 good jobs to Illinois, and the prison would be doing exactly what intended to do. If President Obama, is going to do this, we are literally idiots if we don’t pursue this opportunity.”

The government plans to use most of the 1,600 bed prison for regular federal inmates, around 100 would be the Taliban and Al Qaida terrorists. They would be housed in two to three wings of the prison, and that part would be operated by the Department of Defense, not the Bureau of Prisons.

Sacia said he respects U.S. Rep. Don Manzullo, R-Egan, who is strongly against the government’s plan.

“He and I  had lengthy conversations Monday and Sunday, and I see this significantly different form the congressman, We already have 340 (convicted terrorists) in U.S. prisons; there are 40 at Marion, 40 at Terre Haute, Indiana, and there is another prison in Illinois that has approximately 40.

“I listened to (U.S. Rep.) Mark Kirk say this will be threat to Chicago. For (God’s) sake, this is 150 miles away. A terror target? What a joke. I almost have to laugh at that. Why would it be any different from any maximum security prison in this country?”

Sacia noted that in Savanna, which is close to Thomson, “up until 15 years ago we had more nuclear weapons stored than anywhere in the world, and nobody blew us off the map.”

“Here we have an opportunity to bring significant economic development to northwest Illinois. Usually we hear 5 jobs here, 10 jobs here., and we have an opportunity for 2,000 to 3000 good paying fed jobs and we have people trying to kill it,” Sacia said.

“I take strong issue with Congressman Manzullo,” said Sacia, who spent three hours Monday talking with federal authorities in Thomson to investigate the prison site. “The Gitmo prisoners will be housed totally separte from other inmates. We have a lot better terrorist targets than (Thomson.)”
“All this coffee shop conversation that these people are going to be released in Thomson, Illinois and be treated in our hospitals is a lot of hooey. These are war prisoners, detainees.”

The prison, built at a cost of over $140 million in 2001, is only used for 100 to 200 minimum security prisoners now.

As to the issue of threats to security, Sacia noted that in World War II, “we had 400,000 POWS in the U.S. including hard car Nazis, SS members, and we dealt with them.” Rockford had its share of those Nazis, too, housed in the prison camp at Camp Grant. POWs were taken daily on trucks to work on area farms and in local industries.