At a time of record deficits, a new soccer field for detainees at Camp 6 in Guantanamo Bay is just getting the finishing touches -- at a cost of $750,000 to taxpayers.

The project was the highlight of a tour Tuesday of the detention camp for reporters at the facility covering the arraignment in a military court of Majid Khan, a former Baltimore resident and the the only legal U.S. resident on trial at Guantanamo.

The project began in April 2011 and is due to finish this spring. The detainees will now have three recreation facilities at Camp 6, which is home to "highly compliant" detainees who live in a communal setting.

In addition to an indoor recreation field and the existing outdoor recreation field, the new soccer field -- selected because it is such a popular sport with detainees -- is half the size of an American football field.

The new field has been specially constructed so that the detainees "have maximum access" -- about 20 hours a day. Special passageways allow the detainees to pass into the new recreation yard without being escorted by the military.

On the tour, a military police representative who asked not to be identified by name said allowing high levels of activity outdoors helped reduce behavioral problems at the camps, and it also limited the amount of interaction between detainees and the guards.

Since the detention camps opened in 2002, some half dozen cases have been prosecuted -- four ended in plea agreements with minimal jail time.

Khan, accused of being hand-selected by Sept. 11, 2001, mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for a second wave of attacks inside the U.S., including a plot to blow up gas stations, is expected to cut a deal. He is also implicated in an assassination plot against former Pakistani President Pervez Musharaff and a car bombing at the Marriott hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 2003.

His appearance will be the first time anyone outside the U.S. military or intelligence community has seen him since his capture after Sept. 11 and transfer to secret prisons formerly maintained by the CIA.

Even some of President Obama's most ardent supporters suggest the administration seems eager to close the camps and reduce the detainee population, and plea agreements with minimal jail time are a sweetheart deal for all involved.

Detainees like Usama bin Laden's personal cook and his driver are spending less time in prison than American citizens prosecuted in federal courts on lesser charges.

By example, Zachary Chesser of Charlottesville, Va., who was convicted for making threats against the creators of "South Park" and for supporting a Somali terror group, but who never fired a shot on the battlefield, is now serving a 25-year sentence.

By contrast, Omar Khadr, who killed an American soldier on the battlefield in Afghanistan is nearly half way through his eight-year sentence at Guantanamo, and may finish out his term in Canada.

On Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder, testifying about the Justice Department budget on Capitol Hill, said the recidivism rate for Guantanamo detainees overall is in the mid-20s. But the recidivism rate for those transferred during the Obama administration is 7 percent. Holder acknowledged that part of that comparison may be because the former detainees have been out for a shorter period of time, but also because the determinations about each of their release had to be unanimously approved by a task force.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/28/guantanamo-detainees-get-new-750g-soccer-field/#ixzz1nhmRmrCi

Screw them, leave them locked up 24/7.

And throw away the key.

Send them all home. Close the camp. Bring home ALL our troops. We can easily defend ourselves IF we wanted to and get out of all these countries. Starting this "war on terrorism" was ridiculous.

I agree to a point. We need to decide which countries we currently occupy are the most important to us, stay in those and leave the other countries. Be prepared for China and Russia to scoop up our scraps though because they will.

I know my answer is too simple and it's not that easy. It just pisses me off that we are even in this situation to begin with.

War on Terror. BS.

What?

You want an honest outsider opinion?

Guantanamo prison is a flashing sign that America lost the war on terror long ago... because America gave up important parts of what America was. You can fight as long as you want, as long as you don't regain those values, you can't even begin to think about winning...

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin

"...the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

You may now start beating the snotty German ***** up...

what Nation under What God?

Well, how am I to know? My point was the "...and justice for all" part... ;)

you really want to have People holler Bloody Murder?

Considering what happened in Germany when people did, I would rather have the justice-thingy! ;)

Gitmo is a Military prison that holds the worst of the worst that we are fighting in a war against an enemy that play by no rules at all. It's not going to be a nice place where everying sits around holding hands and singing Kumbyya. It isn't supposed to define the best of American culture.

Or try and execute them all!

And Justice for All....American Citizens. Not people who wage war against innocent Americans, commit war crimes, commit crimes against humanity, commit crimes in general.

any Civilian in past wars,found armed on a Battlefield, would get shot!
Definitely not babied!

Ahhh... you know the difference between HUMAN rights and CIVIL rights? The pledge says "justice for all." Point. End. No referral to american citizens here... Actually, as I formerly referred, exactly this HUMAN right, that America was always a strong defender of, has been made a civil right by american consent - a loss, a giveup of american core values... and one point that makes me say the war against terror has long been lost.

If they committed crimes, okay - then try them, and (if you want to) fry them. I do not even object the arrest of people in foreign countries here (even if that is under a cloud, to say the least), but the denial of another HUMAN right, the right to a fair trial (you may want to read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights#Right_to_a_fair_trial )

They get a fair trial in a military court.