The US government could build a new high security prison to house some of the detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, dpa cited US Defence Secretary Robert Gates as announcing today. Gates defended President Barack Obama's decision to close Guantanamo and dismissed congressional opposition to bring some of the detainees to prisons on US soil as "fear-mongering." Gates said that federal maximum security prisons - known as "supermax" facilities - are capable of safely housing some of the 240 detainees currently locked up at Guantanamo. "The truth is there's a lot of fear-mongering about this," Gates said in an interview in NBC television. "We've never had an escape from a super-max prison. And that's where these guys will go. And if not one of the existing ones, we'll create a new one." Obama has encountered fierce opposition from Democrats and Republicans who argue bringing the prisoners to the United States would pose a threat to national security. The Senate joined the House of Representatives on Wednesday in rejecting the president's 80-million-dollar request to begin shuttering Guantanamo. Gates reiterated Obama's argument that keeping the controversial facility open undermines the war on terrorism. "The truth is it's probably one of the finest prisons in the world today, but it has a taint," Gates said. "The name itself is a condemnation. What the president was saying is this will be an advertisement for al-Qaeda as long as it's open."
