[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 78 (Wednesday, May 20, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Page S5650]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               GUANTANAMO

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, there now appears to be a wide 
bipartisan agreement in the Senate that closing Guantanamo before the 
administration has a plan to deal with the detainees there was a bad 
idea. Senators will make it official today with their votes.
  For months, we have been saying what Senate Democrats now 
acknowledge: that because the administration has no plan for what to do 
with the 240 detainees at Guantanamo, it would be irresponsible and 
dangerous for the Senate to appropriate the money to close it.
  I commend Senate Democrats for fulfilling their oversight 
responsibilities by refusing to vote to provide any funding to close 
Guantanamo until the administration can prove to the American people 
that closing Guantanamo will not make us less safe than Guantanamo has. 
Those of us in Congress have a responsibility to American service men 
and women, risking their lives abroad, and to citizens here at home. 
Congress will demonstrate its seriousness about that responsibility 
when it votes against an open-ended plan to release or transfer 
detainees at Guantanamo.

  The administration has shown a good deal of flexibility on matters of 
national security over the past few months: on Iraq, for example, in 
not insisting on an arbitrary deadline for withdrawal; on military 
commissions, by deciding to resume their use; on prisoner photos, by 
concluding that releasing them would jeopardize the safety of our 
service men and women; and on Afghanistan, by replicating the surge 
strategy that has worked so well in Iraq.
  I hope the administration will show more of this flexibility by 
changing its position on an arbitrary deadline for closing Guantanamo. 
Americans do not want some of the most dangerous men alive coming here 
or released overseas, where they can return to the fight, as many other 
detainees who have been released from Guantanamo already have.
  Some will argue that terrorists can be housed safely in the United 
States based on past experience. But we have already seen the 
disruption that just one terrorist caused in Alexandria, VA. The number 
of detainees the administration now wants to transfer stateside is an 
order of magnitude greater than anything we have considered before. It 
is one thing to transfer one or two terrorists--disruptive as that may 
be--it is quite another to transfer 50 to 100, or more, as Secretary 
Gates has said would be involved in any transfer from Guantanamo.
  In my view, these men are exactly where they belong: locked up in a 
safe and secure prison and isolated many miles away from the American 
people. Guantanamo is a secure, state-of-the-art facility, it has 
courtrooms for military commissions. Everyone who visits is impressed 
with it. Even the administration acknowledges that Guantanamo is humane 
and well run. Americans want these men kept out of their backyards and 
off the battlefield. Guantanamo guarantees it.
  The administration has said the safety of the American people is its 
top priority. I have no doubt this is true, and that is precisely why 
the administration should rethink--should rethink--its plan to close 
Guantanamo by a date certain. It should have focused on a plan for 
these terrorists first. Once the administration has a plan, we will 
consider closing Guantanamo but not a second sooner.

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