Graham: Keeping Gitmo open puts U.S. troops in greater danger

By Clark Brooks of greenvilleonline.com

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham said today that keeping Guantanamo Bay open puts U.S. troops in greater danger and he is working on a plan to help President Barack Obama replace it with a new prison that will project a better public image.

In a bipartisan compromise effort that almost seems old school in today’s contentious Washington, the president in return is considering Graham’s proposal to try Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators in a military tribunal rather than in civilian court.

“I know how images are used against our troops in the Mideast,” Graham said on CBS’ Face the Nation. “When you talk about waterboarding here at home it may get some applause and make you feel good and make you feel tough, but it spreads like wildfire in the Mideast.

If you’re a young soldier walking the streets of Afghanistan and Iraq, you’ve just been put in (greater) danger.”

Graham, who opposes Obama on domestic issues such as health-care reform, said he is taking heat from the right for wanting to help find a way to close Guantanamo Bay, but it’s the right thing to do.

“I will stand by my president to make rational detainee policy,” he said. “We’ve got 50 people at Guantanamo Bay that are too dangerous to let go through a normal criminal trial. Let’s create a new legal system so they’ll have their day in court.”

Graham said that he cannot rally Republican support by himself for closing Guantanamo Bay. He said he’d seek support from people outside of Congress, such as Gen. David Petraeus, head of the United States Central Command.

Of course, Obama would have to make some concessions on how to prosecute accused terrorists to win Graham’s wholehearted support.

“Where we’re at now is can this administration reverse course on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, which I think would be an act of leadership well-received by the public,” Graham said.

Obama is “getting beat up badly from the left but the ACLU theory of how to manage this war I think is way off base,” he said. “And those who want to waterboard on the right and believe we should keep Guantanamo Bay open forever and use any technique to get information I think they’re equally off base.”