[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 71 (Monday, May 11, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5308-S5309]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             GUANTANAMO BAY

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, on a related matter, the Guantanamo Bay 
detention facility and what we do about that--as everyone knows, our 
President fulfilled a campaign promise when he issued an Executive 
order to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.
  Both President Bush and Secretary Gates had wanted to close it, but 
they were confronted with a very difficult problem: what to do with the 
prisoners at the facility.
  President Obama now faces that same dilemma. Campaign rhetoric, it 
turns out, is one thing; governing is quite another.
  There are far more questions than answers about what the 
administration will do with the prisoners at Guantanamo. Will it hold 
them? Where will it hold them? Will they be sent to the United States? 
Will they be kept in military facilities or in Federal prisons here in 
the United States? How will it guarantee that those who are released do 
not return to the battlefield?

  We don't have answers, of course, to these questions. Yet the 
administration has asked Congress for $80 million, some of which, as is 
quite clearly stated in the language of the request, could be used to 
transfer these detainees to the United States.
  Last week, during the House Appropriations Committee's markup of the 
President's supplemental appropriations request, the chairman struck 
the $80 million, noting that he could not defend the request because 
the administration does not have a plan for closure. As the Senate 
Appropriations Committee prepares to mark up the supplemental request 
this week, I urge the committee to follow the example of the House of 
Representatives. Majority Leader Reid has just informed us that the 
Senate committee would ``fence'' the $80 million, meaning that it would 
release it only when there is a plan,

[[Page S5309]]

but the plan could be almost anything. Nor is there any assurance in 
the statement that no prisoners could come to the United States until 
October 1. That is not the kind of assurance that will get the Senate 
to support this request. As the majority leader said in his classically 
understated way: ``That looks like an issue that could cause a little 
bit of debate.'' I am sure he is absolutely correct about that. Surely, 
we can all agree that the Congress should not approve significant 
funding requests when we have no idea how the administration will use 
the funding. Moreover, the stakes are huge. The terrorist population at 
Guantanamo is dangerous. These are the worst of the worst, some of the 
most dangerous people in the world.
  The 241 terrorists at Guantanamo include 27 members of al-Qaida's 
leadership, 95 lower level al-Qaida operatives, 9 members of the 
Taliban's leadership, 12 Taliban fighters, and 92 foreign fighters. 
Among their ranks are Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is the mastermind of 
the 9/11 attacks and who, in the aftermath of those attacks, was 
planning a followup to attack a west coast skyscraper.
  Another is Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, who served as a key lieutenant for 
KSM--Khalid Shaikh Mohammed--during the planning for 9/11, and he, in 
fact, transferred money to the United States-based operative for that 
plan.
  Ramzi bin al-Shibh helped to organize the 9/11 attacks and he was a 
lead operative in the post-9/11 plot to hijack aircraft and crash them 
into Heathrow airport.
  There is also a terrorist named Hambali, who helped plan the 2002 
Bali bombings that killed more than 200 people and who facilitated the 
al-Qaida financing for the Jakarta Marriott attack in 2004. Abd al 
Rahim Al Nashire masterminded the attack on the USS Cole which claimed 
the lives of 17 U.S. sailors in October of 2000.
  The prior administration has stated that 110 of these detainees 
should never be released because of the danger to the United States.
  What about those who are considered safe for release? We have been 
undergoing a review of the prisoners from the time they have been 
taken, and occasionally we release some because we think they no longer 
represent a threat. The Department of Defense stated in January that 61 
former Guantanamo detainees whom we had released returned to the 
battlefield against the United States and allied forces in Afghanistan, 
Iraq, and elsewhere. This represents in our criminal terms an 11-
percent recidivism rate, and who knows how many of the rest of them may 
also be engaged in acts of terror. One of these recidivists, Said ali 
al-Shihri, who was returned to his home in Saudi Arabia after his 
release from Guantanamo, went to Yemen and he is now the No. 2 in 
Yemen's al-Qaida branch.
  So what are we to do with these people? More than 100 days into the 
administration, we don't know what their plan is. According to press 
reports, part of the plan may be to allow one group of these detainees, 
17 Uighurs from China, to have residence in the United States.
  As the Senator from Alabama, Mr. Sessions, noted in two letters to 
the Attorney General, such an action appears to be prohibited under 
United States law. Senator Sessions stated in his letter to Mr. Holder:

       Just 4 years ago, Congress enacted into law a prohibition 
     on the admission of foreign terrorists and trained militants 
     into this country. Accordingly, Congress is entitled to know 
     what legal authority, if any, you believe the administration 
     has to admit into the United States Uighurs and/or any other 
     detainee who participated in terrorist-related activities 
     covered by section 1182(a)(3)(B).

  Congress obviously must have the answer to this question before it 
considers funding that could possibly be used to bring these and other 
terrorists and detainees to the United States.
  What of the rest of the terrorists? Will the administration bring 
them to the United States to stand trial? If so, according to what 
rules? We have been told that the administration was shutting down the 
military commissions process set up by Congress, but now it appears 
that that process may be brought back. Will all of the remaining 
Guantanamo terrorists be tried in that system or will civilian courts 
be used? And if civilian courts, which ones?
  If you can't imagine these terrorists actually being tried in U.S. 
civilian courts, you might try to imagine a little harder. The most 
likely locations of trials are in Manhattan or Alexandria, VA--both 
very high population areas. The 2006 death penalty trial of Zacarias 
Moussaoui turned Alexandria into a virtual encampment, with heavily 
armed agents, rooftop snipers, bomb-sniffing dogs, blocked streets, 
identification checks, and a fleet of television satellite trucks.
  And where will these detainees be held while awaiting trial? Federal 
prisons, which are already overcrowded, would be overburdened with the 
obligation of housing terrorist suspects. Zacarias Moussaoui, who spent 
23 hours a day inside his 80-square-foot cell, was constantly monitored 
and never saw other inmates. An entire unit of six cells and a common 
area was set aside just for him.
  If not in Federal prisons, perhaps military prisons. Well, not so 
fast. Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs 
noted that extensive work would have to be done on existing military 
brigs before Guantanamo detainees could be held there:

       You can't commingle them with military detainees, so you'd 
     have to set up a separate wing or clear out the facility.

  The structures would have to be reinforced so that they wouldn't be 
vulnerable to terrorist attacks. He concludes by saying:

       And you would have to address secondary and tertiary--

  in other words, security--

     concerns with the town, the county and the State.

  The reality of the situation is that there is simply no better place 
for these terrorists than the state-of-the-art facility at Guantanamo.
  This is why the Senate went on record voting against the proposition 
that these detainees be brought to the United States. In fact, the 
Senate agreed to the amendment offered by the senior Senator from 
Kentucky by a vote of 94 to 3. Among the people voting in support of 
this resolution were the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the 
Interior, and the Vice President himself while they were Members of 
this body. So key members of the Obama administration have agreed with 
the language of the amendment which was that Guantanamo detainees--and 
I am quoting now--``should not be . . . transferred stateside into 
facilities in American communities and neighborhoods.''
  If the administration has a plan, I will listen to it, but with 
approximately 8 months to go before the President's arbitrary deadline, 
I see no good answers to the complicated questions of what to do with 
the world's most dangerous terrorists.
  Before the President asks for appropriations to shut down the 
Guantanamo facility, appropriations which could be spent to bring these 
terrorists to the United States, the least he could do is to provide 
Congress with a plan that explains how Americans will be safer having 
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his partners as neighbors.
  Mr. President, I note the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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