Prometheus 6

Asked why it would require housing for 800 to 1,200 personnel and a dining facility for up to 800 people, Whitman said the idea is to hold multiple trials -- and house "any number of people -- legal and administrative personnel, media, . . . security . . . attorneys."

Pentagon wants to build mini-city for terror trials
The Pentagon wants to build a compound costing up to $125 million for upcoming war crimes trials at Guantánamo. The proposal has yet to be presented to Congress, which must OK funding.
BY CAROL ROSENBERG

The Pentagon plans to build a military commissions compound at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, costing up to $125 million, a major undertaking meant to accommodate up to 1,200 people for the first U.S. war crimes trials since World War II, The Miami Herald learned Thursday.

If funded by Congress, the compound would be the largest single construction expenditure at Guantánamo since the Bush administration set up the offshore detention center in January 2002.

"The solicitation is unrestricted -- so any number of entities might want to bid on this," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Thursday. "We want to start construction as soon as possible, so we can begin multiple trials as early as July of 2007."

The proposal calls for a work, residential and security compound on an abandoned airfield that in the 1990s housed a tent camp for Cuban rafters. Years before, it was the site of a hangar for U.S. military blimps.

The details are specified in a "pre-solicitation notice," which The Miami Herald found posted on the web for potential government contractors. It was dated Nov. 3. Whitman said he believed it was, in fact, posted during the past 24 hours.

On paper, the idea resembles a mini-city, with housing, dining, meeting and courtroom space for those involved in the trials -- plus, Whitman said, a high-security space for top-secret and other classified materials.

The compound would cost from $75 million to $125 million and include a courthouse with two courtrooms, conference space, a closed-circuit video transmission center and a 100-car motor pool.

Asked why it would require housing for 800 to 1,200 personnel and a dining facility for up to 800 people, Whitman said the idea is to hold multiple trials -- and house "any number of people -- legal and administrative personnel, media, . . . security . . . attorneys."

To put the project in perspective, the annual operating costs at the detention center away are about $100 million, according to Rear Adm. Harry Harris, the prison camps' commander.