Gen. Fraser defends $744,000 Guantanamo soccer field

[unhappycamper]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/03/07/141055/gen-fraser-defends-744000-guantanamo.html#storylink=cpy

Gen. Fraser defends $744,000 Guantanamo soccer field
By Carol Rosenberg | The Miami Herald
Posted on Wednesday, March 7, 2012

The Air Force general in charge of Pentagon operations in Latin America and the Caribbean confirmed his upcoming retirement from military service in testimony at Congress Tuesday that included a defense of the controversial $744,000 soccer field at a Guantánamo prison camp as part of cost-saving measures.

~snip~

During his testimony, Frasier defended the Pentagon’s decision to spend $744,000 on a new soccer field for cooperative captives at the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, a quality-of-life improvement that has drawn protest from some Republican members of Congress.

At the hearing Tuesday, Rep. Michael Conaway, R-Texas, an accountant from Odessa, called the investment “troubling, indeed head scratching.”

The general replied that the detention center had been downsizing to consolidate the prison camps while cutting contact between captives and captors as well as meeting U.S. obligations under the Geneva Conventions.

[el_bryanto]

1. Look if we are going to hold people indefinitely for no stated reason

We need to provide a few amenities.

Bryant

[madrchsod]

2. we built an entire soccer field complex for around 100,000

over the last 20 years we have spent 100,000 on a complex that started as a cornfield and now has 7 fields from small kids to regulation size. this year we are adding concession and bath rooms. for 750,000 we could build an indoor soccer facility , buy more land for more field, and more amenities.

come to think of it i bet our city has contributed that much for the iraq-afganistan war...

[qb]

3. I'll bet you didn't hire an over-priced & politically-connected contractor to design & build it.

Lining pockets gets expensive.