[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 85 (Tuesday, June 14, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3742-S3743]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             WAR ON TERROR

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, since the attacks on 9/11 and the 
very beginning of the war on terror in 2001, most Americans have 
understood that we could no longer kind of passively wait for the next 
enemy attack. In order to defeat, dismantle, and disrupt al-Qaida, our 
intelligence, military, and law enforcement officials would have to 
work together to defeat terrorist cells, whether they are in the tribal 
areas of Pakistan or, frankly, here in our own backyard. Yet, if some 
had begun to think, after the killing of Osama bin Laden, that we could 
now sit back and relax a little, the recent arrest in my State, in the 
hometown of my colleague, Senator Paul, of two foreign fighters who 
have openly admitted to conducting attacks against U.S. soldiers and 
marines in Iraq shows how mistaken a notion that is.
  Let's look at that again. Here are two Iraqi terrorists arrested in 
Bowling Green, KY, within the last couple of weeks. And the Director of 
Central Intelligence stated in an open hearing on Capitol Hill last 
week that about 1,000 members of al-Qaida in Iraq continue to fight us 
over in Iraq. Now we know that at least two of them--at least two of 
them--have left the battlefield over there to live right here in the 
United States.
  The case of Waad Ramadan Alwan and Mohanad Shareef Hammadi shows us 
that terrorists continue to pose an imminent threat. We owe a debt of 
gratitude to the men and women who made sure they couldn't inflict more 
harm on Americans here or abroad once they arrived here. Anyone who has 
read about the investigation into their activities can only be 
impressed with the courage, the skill, and the professionalism of those 
who were involved in this effort.
  Specifically, I wish to thank the men and women from the FBI's 
Louisville Division, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western 
District of Kentucky, the Louisville Joint Terrorism Task Force, and 
the Justice Department's National Security Division. Every one of those 
folks involved clearly did their job, and they did it very well.
  That having been said, I think it is safe to say that a lot of 
Kentuckians, including me, would like to know why two men who either 
killed or plotted to kill U.S. soldiers and marines over in Iraq aren't 
sitting in a jail cell in Guantanamo right now. When it comes to enemy 
combatants, our top priority, as I have said repeatedly, should be to 
capture, detain, and interrogate. That wasn't done here. These men are 
foreign fighters--unlawful enemy combatants--who should be treated as 
such.
  Alwan is on tape admitting to having procured explosives and missiles 
in Iraq and to using them daily--daily--to conduct strikes.
  He said he had personally used improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, 
hundreds of times over a period of several years. He has talked about 
using them against U.S. troops and the damage he has done to U.S. 
military vehicles such as Humvees. He told undercover agents he was 
``very good with a sniper rifle end.'' In a reference to attacks on 
U.S. troops, he said his lunch and dinner would be ``an American.'' He 
admitted that he ``collected everything,'' TNT, electronic detonators, 
tank explosive detonators, IED detonators, mortar shells, and rocket-
propelled grenades. He also said that he often placed IEDs after the 
curfew, and it was this activity that led to his being asked to join 
the mujahedin.
  He even tried to demonstrate his expertise as a foreign fighter by 
drawing diagrams of four types of IEDs, explaining how to build them 
and discussing various occasions in which he used these devices against 
U.S. troops in Iraq. In describing one particular type of IED, Alwan 
said, ``Anything lethal could be stuffed into it, such as ball 
bearings, nails, gravel, and whatever item that kills.'' Alwan's 
fingerprints have also allegedly been found on IEDs over in Iraq in an 
area in which he is known to have lived.
  Once Alwan made his way to the United States, he is alleged to have 
recruited Hammadi to continue his fight against Americans over in Iraq 
by burrowing himself into a community where he thought he would go 
undetected. Like Alwan, Hammadi was an experienced insurgent fighter in 
Iraq. He too had participated in IED attacks and was part of an 
insurgent group that had 11 surface-to-air missiles.
  Together, these two men organized shipments of money and weapons, 
including rocket grenade launchers, Stinger missiles, and C4 explosives 
that they thought they were sending back to the war zone in Iraq.
  Anyone who has taken up arms against U.S. forces in the field of 
battle is an enemy combatant, pure and simple, and should be treated 
like one. They should be hunted and captured, detained and 
interrogated, and tried away from civilian populations according to the 
laws of war.
  Unfortunately, since the earliest days of this administration when 
the President signed a series of Executive orders which directed the 
closing of the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, and 
limited the ability of the military and intelligence community to 
detain and interrogate prisoners, a higher priority has been placed 
upon prosecution than on executing the war on terror.
  But I can say with certainty that Kentuckians don't want foreign 
fighters who have bragged about killing and maiming U.S. soldiers in a 
combat theater treated like common criminals in their own backyards. 
They don't want foreign fighters to be afforded all of the legal rights 
and privileges of U.S. citizens. They don't want foreign fighters to 
have their interrogations curtailed. And they don't want their fellow 
citizens in Kentucky subjected to the risk of reprisal that is 
associated with these kinds of cases, reprisals against civilian 
judges, reprisals against civilian jurors, and the broader community in 
which civilian trials are held. That was one of the many reasons that 
residents and lawmakers in New York City rebelled against the 
administration's equally foolhardy plan to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 
in a courtroom in New York. That is to say nothing of the security 
costs and the disruption that civilian trials for terrorists create for 
any American community. We have firsthand experience of this from the 
2006 murder trial of Zacarias Moussaoui in Alexandria, VA.
  Despite all of this, however, the administration seems fixated on the 
idea that once we have caught terrorists, the goal isn't to get as much 
intelligence out of them as quickly as possible to prevent further 
attacks on soldiers and citizens but to prove that we can treat them 
the same way we treat everybody else.

[[Page S3743]]

  My response to that is, maybe we could. Maybe we can do that. And you 
can put them in a U.S. court, but why in the world would you want to? 
You could, but should you?
  The administration likes to tout its confidence in the U.S. legal 
system. Well, I don't believe the American people need to try any enemy 
combatants in our own hometowns and cities to prove that our court 
system works. We know it works. We are American citizens.
  Prosecution is certainly important. But let's be clear, prosecution 
is not our ultimate goal in this war. Our goal is to capture or kill 
those who want to kill us, here and abroad, and who are plotting even 
now, as this case clearly proves, to wreak havoc on our troops 
overseas.
  This is quite simple: Those whom we capture should be interrogated 
and, if necessary, indefinitely detained and tried in a military 
setting. Through these interrogations additional intelligence can be 
derived that leads to additional targets, thereby weakening al Qaeda 
and other associated terror groups at a moment when they are 
vulnerable.
  The good news is we already have the perfect solution for a case such 
as the one I have been discussing in Kentucky. These men don't belong 
in a courtroom in Kentucky. They belong in a secured detention facility 
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, far away from U.S. civilians. Sending them to 
Gitmo is the only way to ensure they will not enjoy all the rights and 
privileges of U.S. citizens. Sending them to Gitmo is the only way we 
can be certain there won't be retaliatory attacks in Kentucky. How 
would you like to be the judge in this case? How would you like to be 
the jurors in this case? Do they run the risk of being targets for the 
rest of their lives? Are they in sort of witness protection programs 
indefinitely? Why should we subject U.S. citizens to this kind of risk?
  Sending them to Gitmo is the only way we can prevent Kentuckians from 
having to cover the cost and having to deal with the disturbance and 
disruptions that would come with a civilian trial, and sending them to 
Gitmo is the best way to ensure they get what they deserve.
  Today I am calling on the administration to change course. Get these 
men out of Kentucky. Send them to Guantanamo where they belong. Get 
these terrorists out of the civilian system, get them out of our 
backyards, and give them the justice they deserve.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.

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