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| GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- The military can comply with a White House order to empty the detention center and clear all 221 war-on-terror captives off this remote base "with 10 days notice,'' the prison camps commander said Tuesday. Navy Rear Adm. Tom Copeman told The Miami Herald and Fox News in an interview that his 2,100-member team of guards and other support staff can meet President Barack Obama's Jan. 22 closure deadline right through the eighth anniversary of the establishment of the controversial prison camps. "If they say on Jan. 12, 'Move them out,' we can meet the deadline,'' he said, "given the proper amount of logistical support.'' He ticked off such requirements as enough airplanes to move them elsewhere and ferry runs across the bay that separates the prison camps from the Navy base landing strip where C-17 Globemaster aircraft shuttle the captives away. Copeman is the ninth commander of the Pentagon's showcase detention center. Obama, by Executive Order, is preparing to shut it down by Jan. 22. Congress has thrown a series of roadblocks before that deadline, notably proposed legislation that would ban the transfer of the terror suspects to U.S. soil for any reason other than federal trials. Tuesday, the detention center housed 221 foreign men as captives, 17 of them ordered set free by a federal judge. The over-arching challenge, Copeman said, was for the policymakers in Washington D.C. to find places to send the men. Another key issue, he said, would be "how many (detainees) you can safely get on an airplane with the right amount of guards.'' Copeman said it would take multiple shuttles to take them away, reminiscent of the 8,000-mile air bridge from Bagram, Afghanistan, that the Pentagon set up in 2002 to open Camp X-Ray. The first 20 prisoners arrived on Jan. 11, 2002 and it took eight shuttles to reach a total of 220 men and boys as detainees nearly a month later, on Feb. 9, 2002. The largest single cargo planeload at that time brought 36 detainees, some of them with battlefield wounds inside a C-141 Starlifter aircraft. The smallest airlift in the first month brought 14 men, all bound to stretchers. |