[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 84 (Monday, June 8, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6238-S6239]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             GUANTANAMO BAY

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, finally, I wish to refer to a debate that 
occurred on the floor, I believe it was last Thursday, following 
remarks of the distinguished minority leader and concerning remarks 
made by the assistant majority leader. This has to do with Guantanamo 
Bay, the prison there, and the people whom we have kept in prison 
there.
  I want to specifically address the chorus of false claims and 
insinuations about that facility, noting it has grown louder, in 
tandem, I suspect, with growing American opposition to closing the 
facility and bringing the terrorists to U.S. soil.
  A majority of Americans now oppose the closure of Guantanamo. This is 
according to a USA Today poll of June 2. This is by a margin of 2 to 1. 
Many of the arguments we have heard recently to dissuade them, frankly, 
give off more heat than light.
  My friend and colleague, the majority whip, recently gave a speech in 
which he claimed arguments opposing the closure of the prison at 
Guantanamo made by Senator McConnell and others are ``based on fear.'' 
I contend these arguments are based on concerns about both the safety 
of Americans and the logistical obstacles to closing the facility.
  Last month, before the House Judiciary Committee, FBI Director Robert 
Mueller testified that transferring the remaining Guantanamo detainees 
to U.S. prisons--even maximum security prisons--would entail serious 
security risks. He said this: ``The concerns we have about individuals 
who may support terrorism being in the United States run from concerns 
about providing financing, radicalizing others,'' as well as ``the 
potential for individuals undertaking attacks in the United States.''
  The Guantanamo facility is separated from American communities. It is 
well protected from the threat of a terrorist attack. No one has ever 
escaped from Guantanamo.
  Why should we feel pressure to support President Obama's arbitrary 
deadline to close the facility when the administration has yet to offer 
a plan about where to relocate the terrorists and where, I would 
submit, a case has not been made for closing this facility and locating 
those prisoners elsewhere? In fact, other countries have told us they 
do not want them, with the exception of France, which offered to take 
one prisoner. And a new June 2 USA Today poll, which I talked about 
before, shows that Americans, by a measure of 3 to 1, reject bringing 
those terrorists to the United States.
  In his speech, Senator Durbin also made reference to the ``torture of 
prisoners held by the United States'' and the ``treatment of some 
prisoners at Guantanamo.''
  Regarding the treatment of Guantanamo detainees, I think the record 
needs to reflect the following: The living conditions at the facility 
are safe and humane. This is a $200 million state-of-the-art facility 
that meets or exceeds standards of modern prison facilities. Following 
his February tour of Guantanamo, Attorney General Holder said:

       I did not witness any mistreatment of prisoners. I think, 
     to the contrary, what I saw was a very conscious attempt by 
     these guards to conduct themselves in an appropriate way.

  Numerous international delegations and government officials from 
dozens of countries have likewise visited the facility. During a 2006 
inspection by the Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe, a 
Belgian representative said:

       At the level of the detention facilities, it is a model 
     prison, where people are better treated than in Belgian 
     prisons.

  Detainees get to exercise regularly, receive culturally and 
religiously appropriate meals three times a day, and access to mail and 
a library. Additionally, the International Committee of the Red Cross 
has unfettered access to the detainees. They have met all detainees in 
private sessions and routinely consult with the United States on its 
detention operations.
  The facility provides outstanding medical care to every detainee. In 
2005, the military completed a new camp hospital to treat detainees, 
who have now received hundreds of surgeries and thousands of dental 
procedures and vaccinations. So this idea that the prisoners are 
treated badly is patently false.
  The insinuation--directly or indirectly--that torture has occurred at

[[Page S6239]]

Guantanamo must stop. Torture is illegal. It was never permitted at 
Guantanamo. And torture has never been sanctioned by the United States.
  In discussions about torture, we have heard a lot of rhetoric that 
attempts to draw a straight line between what happened at Abu Ghraib 
and the legal, enhanced interrogations at Guantanamo. But let's be 
clear about the distinction: At Abu Ghraib, a few brutal prison guards 
abused inmates. In doing so, they violated American law and military 
regulations. And for that they rightly received Army justice.
  The methods of legal interrogation used at Guantanamo, which have 
wrongly been characterized by some as ``torture,'' were used on a few 
of the most hardened terrorists after all other efforts failed.
  At Guantanamo, all credible allegations of detainee abuse are 
investigated, and the military has not hesitated to prosecute or 
discipline any guards who violate those standards, regardless of 
provocation.
  Navy RADM Mark Buzby, commander of the Joint Task Force at 
Guantanamo, said, in 2007, the facility's practices have been in 
keeping with DOD policies:

       We tend to get wrapped up in the greater discussion of 
     detainees down here with those detained elsewhere. There have 
     been many, many investigations conducted of the conditions in 
     Guantanamo . . . and they found no deviations from standing 
     DOD policies.

  ``No deviations from standing DOD policies.''
  Then there is the idea that has been floated by the President, 
Senator Durbin, and others that keeping Guantanamo Bay open serves as a 
``recruitment tool'' for al-Qaida. By this logic, our fight against the 
Taliban or our targeted airstrikes against terrorists in Pakistan could 
be dubbed ``recruitment tools'' for al-Qaida, since both policies 
involve planting U.S. forces in Muslim nations to fight jihadists.
  This ``recruitment tool'' idea is the latest incarnation of what 
Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick dubbed the ``blame America first'' 
mentality. It makes excuses for the terrorists and heaps scorn on the 
United States for fighting back.
  Recall that al-Qaida was swelling its ranks throughout the 1990s--
before the war on terror and well before the prison at Guantanamo Bay 
was even created. During that decade, it struck the World Trade Center, 
the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and 
Tanzania. Then, in October 2000, it attacked the USS Cole off the coast 
of Yemen.
  So by the time the 19 hijackers boarded the four planes that crashed 
on September 11, 2001, al-Qaida had already identified numerous 
grievances with America, including its contempt for Western culture, 
equal rights for women and men, and our support for free speech and the 
exchange of ideas.
  I have sent a letter to the National Security Advisor asking for 
evidence that keeping Guantanamo Bay open has created more terrorists 
than the facility has housed. That was a statement that President Obama 
made, that the existence of the Guantanamo prison has created more 
terrorists than the facility has housed. It is an incredible assertion, 
but it is at the foundation of his claim that we need to close 
Guantanamo because somehow it represents a valid symbol of American 
torture or oppression that hurts our efforts abroad. Anything we do is 
going to cause recruitment of terrorists who hate us. Whether we close 
Guantanamo or not, the terrorists will still have plenty of reasons to 
recruit fellow jihadists. I wish to ask again, today, that the 
administration provide us with the information that backs up the 
President's claim on this issue.
  Ultimately, the debate over Guantanamo has become a debate over 
geography. Both the new Attorney General and the new Solicitor General 
have endorsed the government's right to detain suspected terrorists 
indefinitely. That is correct. Whether we detain them at Guantanamo or 
at prisons on U.S. soil does not change the fundamental reality that 
this administration, like its predecessor, will be holding certain 
individuals without trial.

  We have been told that Guantanamo must be closed for symbolic 
reasons. But America should never make national security decisions 
based on symbolism or false moral arguments.
  I hope as we continue to debate this issue of the prison at 
Guantanamo, and as the President has been asked to provide a plan for 
how that base would be closed, and how much it would cost, and as he 
continues to ask Congress to provide the funding to carry out that 
plan, we keep in mind these critical points.
  The first is you cannot legitimately make the argument that anything 
has occurred at Guantanamo for which the United States should be 
embarrassed, should apologize, or should, at the end of the day, close 
the facility because of some embarrassment that the United States has 
about our activities there.
  Our soldiers who are involved in protecting our interests by guarding 
those terrorists, the medical personnel, and all of the others who are 
involved, have done a job which, frankly, we should be thankful for. 
And rather than slapping them in the face and insinuating they have 
done something wrong--which makes us have to close that prison down--is 
a terrible indictment on the military men and women who have worked 
hard to do their very best at that facility and, as I pointed out, have 
in all respects conducted themselves in accordance with Army 
procedures.
  At the end of the day, you cannot lie prostrate at the feet of your 
enemies--in this case, the terrorists--and say: We are sorry that we do 
some things to offend you, we will stop doing those, and then maybe you 
will no longer be offended. To suggest that will cause them to no 
longer recruit colleagues and plan attacks against us is fantasy. 
Therefore, I challenge the administration again: Supply the facts on 
which the President made the allegation that the existence of 
Guantanamo created more terrorists than have ever been housed there. It 
is a palpably false statement, and he should not be able to argue to 
the American people and to the Congress, from which he is requesting 
money, that we have to give money to shut down Guantanamo because of 
that false fact. I urge my colleagues, as we continue to debate this 
issue, to challenge the administration to provide that information to 
us.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. 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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