Kansas senators don't want Gitmo detainees

LEAVENWORTH, Kan., Jan. 5 (UPI) -- The two U.S. senators from Kansas say they don't want terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to be transferred to the Fort Leavenworth U.S. Army base.

Republican Sen. Sam Brownback has introduced legislation to ban the use of federal funds for any transfer of the detainees to Leavenworth. Fellow Republican Sen. Pat Roberts also opposes using the Kansas military facility to house "enemy combatants" from Guantanamo, The Kansas City Star reported Monday.

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has vowed to close the U.S. military detention facility in Guantanamo, and his aides are exploring the options of sending some of the prisoners to Fort Leavenworth's disciplinary barracks among other U.S. sites, the newspaper said.

"They plan to close Guantanamo Bay, which I understand," Brownback said recently at the Leavenworth barracks, "... to move them to another location in the United States. I'm saying this one doesn't fit."

Brownback said such a move would disrupt the fort's primary mission of training officers at the Command General Staff College, while Roberts added bringing Guantanamo detainees to Kansas "would be placing Americans in harm's way. It would be a logistical nightmare," the Star reported.