[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15179-15180]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                DETENTION CENTER AT GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, at a Defense Department news briefing in 
December 2001, a reporter asked Secretary Rumsfeld why we should use 
Guantanamo Bay to hold detainees. Secretary Rumsfeld's answer was that 
he ``would characterize Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as the least worst place 
we could have selected.'' This was hardly a ringing endorsement. Now, 
4\1/2\ years later, the administration and its defenders have been 
trying to change the subject from the legal morass that Guantanamo has 
become, and to argue that Guantanamo is like an island resort, with 
great food, top-notch medical care, and a view of the ocean.
  These arguments are distractions from the real issue, which is the 
needless way that the administration's unilateralism in its decisions 
about Guantanamo have compromised American principles and ideals and 
weakened our moral leadership in the world. If the administration has 
improved conditions at the prison, I am glad to know it. We may now run 
the most humane prison in the most scenic location in the world. But it 
is still a prison. Many prisoners have been kept in cells for more than 
3 years without being charged and without a meaningful process to 
evaluate or challenge their detention. Regardless of how well the 
detainees are treated, it is not the American way to detain them 
indefinitely without an adequate hearing. These policies are not only 
beneath us, but they have radicalized an untold number of Muslims 
around the world. Even Secretary Rumsfeld had to admit last year that 
he did not know whether we were ``capturing, killing or dissuading more 
terrorists every day than the madrassas and radical clerics are 
recruiting, training and deploying against us.''
  This is important because it is the ideals of the American people and 
of our great and good country, and our longstanding commitment to the 
rule of law, that are being compromised. These are not the policies of 
a great nation like ours, and this is not the American system of 
justice that has been a beacon to the entire world. We need not trade 
away our values and the principles that have guided us in order to feel 
safer or to be safer. And if we do that, we give those who would harm 
us a victory they could not win on any battlefield, and we cede 
leverage to them that they will never deserve.
  Everyone in Congress agrees that we must capture and detain terrorist 
suspects, but it can and should be done in accordance with the laws of 
war and in a manner that upholds our commitment to the rule of law. In 
our recent hearing on detainees, Senator Graham, a former Air Force 
lawyer who still serves in the Reserves, said that once enemy combatant 
status has been conferred upon someone, ``it is almost impossible not 
to envision that some form of prosecution would follow.'' He continued, 
``We can do this and be a rule of law nation. We can prove to the world 
that even among the worst people in the world, the rule of law is not 
an inconsistent concept.''
  We know that some of the detainees have been wrongly detained. And 
many suspect there are others who have not yet been released, against 
whom the evidence is weak at best. In a January 8, 2005, New York Times 
article, a senior American official claimed ``that the vast majority of 
the 550 prisoners now held at the American detention center at 
Guantanamo no longer had any intelligence value and were no longer 
being regularly interrogated.'' The article also quotes a veteran 
interrogator at Guantanamo who told the New York Times that it ``became 
clear over time that most of the detainees had little useful to say and 
that they were just swept up during the Afghanistan war with little 
evidence they played any significant role.''

[[Page 15180]]

  The administration says these detainees are the ``worst of the 
worst'' and pose a continuing threat to the safety of Americans. If 
that is true, there must be at least basic evidence to support it. No 
one advocates releasing terrorists. But it is the American way to 
provide a fair process to ensure that the detainees at Guantanamo 
really are a threat to our Nation. In a break with military tradition 
and regulations, the administration denied detainees even the limited 
process contemplated by Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention, and 
established the Combatant Status Review Tribunal, CSRT, only after 
being rebuked by the Supreme Court in Rasul v. Bush. The CSRT affirmed 
the ``enemy combatant'' status of the Guantanamo detainees based on 
secret evidence to which the detainees were denied access, raising 
serious questions about the fairness of the process.
  It is time for Congress to focus on the real issue, which is 
defending American ideals and our commitment to the rule of law. The 
chicken at Guantanamo may be wonderful, but this matters little to 
America's core values if we are imprisoning some people who may have 
been wrongly accused of supporting terrorism and who have no way to 
challenge their detention.
  The administration is trumpeting the humane treatment of detainees at 
Guantanamo as a diversion. Guantanamo is a symbol of the needless 
problems created by the unilateral ways this administration has chosen 
to proceed since 9/11. It is being used to deflect attention from this 
administration's deliberate rejection of the rule of law.

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