[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 14379]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               CLUB GITMO

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, this past weekend I spent part of the weekend 
down in the Tropics. I went to an island down in the Caribbean. And the 
place where I went had an ocean view, and the facility is relatively 
new. Some of the rooms are air-conditioned and some are not. Some of 
the rooms actually would meet ADA standards for the physically 
challenged.
  The guests that were there, they were not working. They are standing 
around talking. There is a lot of talking and I noticed that there are 
soccer courts. There are volleyball courts. There is table tennis, and 
they are building a new basketball court.
  I ate lunch, the same meals that the guests had. The lunch that I had 
was marinated chicken with orange sauce, rice pilaf, steamed 
vegetables, plenty of rolls and butter. Some of the guests that are 
there have even gained up to 5 to 10 pounds while being there.
  New medical facilities are there, new dental facilities. The people 
that are there average four medical visits a week or, rather, a month. 
That is more than most Americans do in a year.
  The medical personnel there performed 128 surgeries, and no one that 
has been there, of the 700 guests that have been there, not one has 
died from any cause. In fact, the medical personnel saved the lives of 
numerous ones.
  They come from all over the world, 24 different countries; 520 of 
them are there; 2,200 of them have gone back home.
  The rooms are very clean. I notice that there are no Gideon Bibles in 
any of the rooms, but every room has a Koran. You know, American troops 
do not get U.S.-funded taxpayer Bibles overseas. But all these guests 
get taxpayer-funded Korans. And of course the staff that is there 
cannot touch these Korans.
  Of course I am talking about Gitmo, the Guantanamo Bay terrorist 
detention center. These people are prisoners of war and the guards that 
are there are doing an outstanding job.
  Speaking of the Koran, the guards are not permitted to touch the 
Koran except under rare circumstances. And if they do, they have to 
wear linen gloves before they can move this Koran to a different cell.
  The people that are there are there for two purposes. They are 
suspected terrorists that are going to be tried for war crimes, like 
killing people all over the world, many of whom are Americans. The 
others that are there are being interrogated, those suspected 
terrorists.
  Now I observed those interrogations, Mr. Speaker. There are no 
abuses. There are no dogs. There is no abuse. The interrogations that 
took place, neither the interrogator nor the prisoner knew that we were 
observing. And numerous Members of Congress went this past week and 
observed these facilities.
  One hundred fifty of these individuals have attorneys. Any prisoner 
that is there that wants an attorney is entitled to have one.
  Two hundred of them have been released; in fact, maybe releasing some 
we should not release, because 12 of the ones that have been released 
have been either recaptured or killed on the battlefield. One is of 
particular note. When he was first arrested and captured as a terrorist 
he had a leg that was infected, so part of it was amputated. And he was 
fitted with a new prosthesis by American medical personnel. Later 
released and he was captured, recaptured on the battlefield, and of 
course he was still wearing that American prosthesis that taxpayers 
paid for.
  These people do not work. You know, even in Texas we work our 
inmates. Today they are out picking cotton. But they are just there to 
be observed and to be housed. You know, one of these facilities meets 
American Corrections Association standards.
  And these people, Mr. Speaker, are not nice. They spit on our guards. 
They throw urine and feces at our guards. And some of these people want 
to kill Americans.
  The guards, Mr. Speaker, are first class. They are from all branches 
of the service. They have tremendous cooperation with each other, and 
they make us proud. The accusations of abuse in a dungeon-like facility 
do a disservice to these troops and the troops in combat.
  I had lunch with two of these guards, George Telles and Enrique 
Lopez, Jr., both Navy sailors that guard cell blocks. And they do us a 
great honor and a service there.
  These inmates are not protected by the Geneva Convention, although we 
treat them like they are. The Geneva Convention says that POWs, to be a 
real prisoner of war, they must be in a uniform, they must not have 
concealed weapons, they must not kill innocents, and they must have a 
chain of command. And these terrorists violate all four of these rules, 
but yet we treat them with greater respect than in the Geneva 
Convention.
  The International Red Cross observes the entire facility and has 
access to all of the prisoners to talk to them on a one-on-one basis. 
There have been no deaths in Guantanamo. And you know, in prisoner-of-
war camps in the past, Americans have died. Back in the war between the 
States, thousands of prisoners, Confederate and Union soldiers died. In 
Vietnam, about 9 percent of the Americans in custody there died. In 
Korea, about 30 percent. In World War II, we know that about 40 percent 
of Americans in custody in Japan died, all in prisoner-of-war camps, 
and not one person has died in these.

                              {time}  1945

  Amnesty International calls this place a ``gulag.'' Well, these are 
words from the uninformed elite. They must want ``Club GITMO'' or 
``Disney World of the Caribbean.''
  Some said to close it down. That is just not appropriate, Mr. 
Speaker. We probably ought to make it bigger. It would be a crime to 
close this place down and let these criminals loose on the world. There 
is a war on terror going on and these people want to kill Americans. 
They are dangerous. The 20th highjacker of 9/11 is there, and these 
people need to be tried for war crimes.
  Mr. Speaker, I went to Iraq. I have seen what these people have done, 
these terrorists have done to civilians and to our military. Even one 
8-year-old kid was killed while I was there. Mr. Speaker, I am more 
concerned about Americans being killed by terrorists by beheading and 
suicide bombers and the welfare of our troops than I am about some 
terrorist outlaw that is upset because his blueberry muffin gets cold.

                          ____________________