Guantanamo camp burns through $900,000 a year per inmate

[Douglas Carpenter]

WASHINGTON | Fri May 3, 2013 7:45pm EDT

(Reuters) - It's been dubbed the most expensive prison on Earth and President Barack Obama cited the cost this week as one of many reasons to shut down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, which burns through some $900,000 per prisoner annually.


The Pentagon estimates it spends about $150 million each year to operate the prison and military court system at the U.S. Naval Base in Cuba, which was set up 11 years ago to house foreign terrorism suspects. With 166 inmates currently in custody, that amounts to an annual cost of $903,614 per prisoner.

By comparison, super-maximum security prisons in the United States spend about $60,000 to $70,000 at most to house their inmates, analysts say. And the average cost across all federal prisons is about $30,000, they say.

Just one inmate from Guantanamo, for example, is equivalent to the cost of 12 weeks of White House tours for the public - a treasured tradition that the Secret Service says costs $74,000 a week and that has been axed under sequestration.

A single inmate is also the equivalent of keeping open the control tower at the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport for 45 months. That control tower, another victim of cuts, costs $20,000 per month to run.

The $900,000 also matches the funding for nearly seven states to help serve home delivered meals to the elderly. Sequestration has cost Meals on Wheels a median shortfall of $129,497 per state, the organization says.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/03/us-usa-guantanamo-costs-idUSBRE94211N20130503

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damn, it would be cheaper to house them at the Waldorf Astoria

[BainsBane]

1. Wow

You'd think this would have some impact on Republicans.

[niyad]

2. I am sure they are figuring out a way to make money on this.

[BainsBane]

6. Halliburton, no doubt

[niyad]

3. wow, at a very modest 25k per year (doable in this area, anyway), that would take care of 45

families per year per prisoner.

absolutely un-friggin-believable.

[Poll_Blind]

4. Fuck that's insane. nt

PB

[Mnemosyne]

5. If they weren't making money on it, it would have been closed long ago. War crimes. nt

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. It would be cheaper to give Gitmo back to Cuba and throw in the prisoners as a bonus.

[riderinthestorm]

8. I'd really like to see the breakdown on this number. They're basically housed in dog cages

so is it personnel costs? Because after Limbaugh's rant a few years ago, we know they aren't being fed gourmet food.

What exactly is costing so much?



(and trust me, I believe this number and hope to hell that the COST of this horror finally breaks through to people and forces change... just wondering about the breakdown).