[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12840-12842]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    STATEMENTS REGARDING GUANTANAMO

  Mr. KYL. Madam President, one of the things I remember that my father 
taught me--and it has stood me in good stead, though I have not always 
followed the advice--is to have strong convictions but always to deal 
in moderation and be reasonable in your approach, to listen to other 
people and try to be responsible in what you say. In all things, 
moderation would have applied to the advice he gave me frequently. 
Again, not to say one should not have strong views, but you can be more 
effective in communicating those views if you treat people decently, if 
you listen to what they have to say, and if you express your own views 
with a degree of humility and moderation. That is something that, sad 
to say, even in my relatively short time in the Congress, I have seen 
adhered to, sadly, less and less.
  Certainly, the Senator from West Virginia sets a standard for all of 
us in the way that he treats this body, the revere he has for the 
institution and, therefore, the care he takes to deal in this body in 
an appropriate and responsible way, in the great tradition of the body.
  I mention that because the coarsening of our language, I suppose, can 
be expected to be manifested first in the political environment. It 
certainly has occurred with increasing intensity over the years, 
though, not just in political campaigns but even on the floor of the 
Senate and engaged in by colleagues in the Congress as well as pundits 
and others.
  Strong subjects sometimes evoke strong emotions, and perhaps that 
explains why some of the rhetoric surrounding the discussion of our 
detention of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay has reached such a 
high-pitched level, to such a high degree of hyperbole and 
exaggeration--I daresay, in some cases, irresponsible 
characterizations.
  If this were simply a matter of political rhetoric and partisan 
politics, I suppose that in some senses it could be excused, though it 
is not helpful. But here the consequences of such language, this over-
the-top kind of rhetoric, can actually be detrimental to the effort of 
the United States that all of us support--certainly to the people we 
put in harm's way, our men and women in the military, and the other 
services that are helping us to fight the war on terror.
  This is why it distresses me to hear the characterizations of 
American activities and Americans as being equated with some of the 
worst actors in the history of mankind--phrases thrown around, 
apparently, somewhat thoughtlessly, without due regard for the 
consequences, when enemies of the United States seize on the flimsiest 
of things to take to the streets and riot and kill each other.
  The unfortunate reporting of Newsweek Magazine--which turned out not 
to be true--regarding desecration of the Holy Koran caused Muslims in 
the world--thousands and thousands--to riot and cause harm to each 
other. I believe there were at least three deaths that resulted, if I 
am not mistaken. Words have consequences, and when Americans speak in 
irresponsible terms about the actions of Americans who are simply 
trying to do their best in trying circumstances, in ways that denigrate 
their motives, denigrate their actions, and that call into question the 
entire character of America, because of these actions, it is 
irresponsible. And it should not be engaged in, especially it should 
not be countenanced by Members of this body or the Congress, certainly 
not engaged in by leaders in this body. Yet, sad to say, we all have 
heard in the last few days this kind of language.
  I will get back to that in a moment. Let me go back and try to 
provide some perspective about this entire debate about Guantanamo Bay.
  Guantanamo Bay is a place where the United States Government has had 
a lease from the Cuban Government for a long time and spent about $150 
million to build a prison facility to house many of the people who had 
been detained in the war on terrorism, primarily people who were on the 
battlefield in Afghanistan, there being no facilities adequate in 
Afghanistan.
  It is a place that was designed to be able to accommodate people of 
different cultures. It is significantly managed by Americans who have a 
significant degree of medical background and training in the culture of 
Islam in order to ensure that the people there are treated as humanely 
as possible under the circumstances and with due regard for not only 
their human rights but their faith as well.
  This country need apologize to no one in the way that over the years 
we have tried to adhere to human rights standards and treat people of 
faith appropriately. Certainly the stories--and I say ``stories'' 
because in most cases, they are mere allegations that are untrue--of 
treatment of people at Guantanamo Bay have raised the interest of 
Americans because we are a people who instinctively pull back from such 
kind of conduct. We do not want to be even against terrorists engaged 
in inhumane activity. That is why these stories have such resonance.
  Yet this facility, which takes care of these people in some respects 
even better than the troops there--in terms of the sleeping quarters, 
meals, and so on--this facility is as good, I think, as any prisoner of 
war facility in recent memory and certainly with the attention of the 
media, the International Red Cross, visits by American officials--there 
have been thousands of visits. It is a very wide open facility in that 
sense.
  With all of this attention, I think the very small number of specific 
complaints that have been investigated and found to have any merit at 
all--something like five in number--is a testament to the commitment of 
the United States to adhere to standards of decency and humanity when 
dealing with people.
  Who are these people? These are the worst of the worst. We do not 
have the time or the ability to round up people and hold them for the 
sake of it. It is too costly. Over 10,000 people have been captured in 
this war against the terrorists. Something like 520 are at Guantanamo 
Bay. These are the people who are the bombmakers, the bodyguards of 
Osama bin Laden, the financiers, the plotters, the people who have been 
sent out to be assassins, to be suicide bombers. These are the worst of 
the worst, the killers who, if let go, will return to their killing.
  Since the detentions at Guantanamo Bay, the United States Supreme 
Court has said there is one right that these detainees have, and that 
is a right to have their status determined, even through a habeas 
corpus petition, which in the United States means a right to have 
questioned the appropriateness of your being detained. The Supreme 
Court did not hold they have a right to a trial, that they have a right 
to be charged with anything, that they have a right to a particular 
kind of legal proceeding. Simply, they have a right to have their 
status reviewed by an appropriate tribunal.
  And since then, their status has been reviewed, every one of them. 
There is a process by which it is reviewed annually to determine 
whether they not only are still appropriately held, but whether they 
need to be held, whether they pose a threat.
  In this period of time, a dozen of these detainees--many were 
released, something like 200, as I recall--a dozen have already been 
recaptured on the battlefield. They went right back to killing 
Americans.
  This is why prisoners of war are detained when captured, and it has 
thus been throughout modern history. In World War II, for example, we 
have all seen the movies and read about the internment camps of Germans 
and Japanese and, of course, the way Americans were held as POWs as 
well. With the rare exception of the people at the very top of the Nazi 
Government and a few of the Nazi generals, the German POWs were not 
charged with crimes or tried for those crimes. They were simply held in 
these camps until the end of the war.
  A couple of these camps were in Arizona. I know an Arizona physician 
who went through one of these camps, I believe in Nebraska. When he got 
out, he decided he liked America a whole lot and became a renowned 
physician in Phoenix. These were places that people

[[Page 12841]]

were held until the end of the war so they could not go back to 
fighting against Americans. That is precisely the primary purpose of 
Guantanamo Bay.
  For the worst of the worst, the people we do not want to go back 
fighting against us or committing terror against anyone else, we have 
to have a place to detain them.
  I must say, in a debate with the senior Senator from Vermont last 
night on television--and he and I disagreed generally about this 
issue--he acknowledged this is not about Guantanamo Bay. As he said, we 
have to have a place to hold these people, and I agree with that 
proposition. Some have even suggested we close this brand-new facility. 
If you close it, where are you going to put them? Would you like to 
take one of the military bases that is being closed in your State and 
make it available for these detainees? Maybe that is the place to 
detain them. I do not think so.
  The issue is not closing Guantanamo Bay. I think it is, frankly, 
criticism of the American Government and leaders of the American 
Government. Some people do it for partisan political purposes. Others 
do it, to bring down certain people. Others, frankly, have a disregard 
for this country and are quick to criticize almost anything we do.
  But look at some of the specific charges. One of them is these people 
are being held in limbo. They are not being held in limbo any more than 
any other prisoner of war or enemy combatant has been held in the past. 
They are being held until the conflict is over so they do not go back 
to fighting us again.
  Then they demand to know of the general and admiral who were before 
the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday when we held a hearing on 
this: Well, how long are they going to be detained? We demand to know. 
We do not know how long the war is going to last, Senator. I demand to 
know. Will it be forever? What if the war lasts for forever, will they 
be detained forever?
  These are pretty silly questions, if you ask me. We do not want to 
detain these people. We would like not to have to do it. We would like 
to bring the war to a close, but until it is safe to release them, they 
are not going to be released, not unless we are going to jeopardize the 
service people and others who are subject to terrorism. So let's get 
back to reason and solid logic here.
  Another question is, Why are we treating these people possibly a 
little bit differently than other prisoners of wars have been treated? 
The answer is they are not prisoners of war. That does not mean we do 
not treat them humanely and in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.
  That is another charge, that we violated the Geneva Conventions. No, 
we have not. No, we have not. The United States adheres to the Geneva 
Conventions, and we have not violated them, and we do not intend to. 
Enemy combatants are not entitled to the protection of the Geneva 
accords to which prisoners of war are entitled.
  The reason for the Geneva accords for the POWs is we want to reward 
people who adhere to the laws of war. What does that mean? They fight 
for a country, they wear the uniform of that country, they adhere 
themselves to the rules of war. In the case of terrorists, that does 
not apply. They do not fight for a country, they fight for a cause. 
They do not wear a uniform. They do not fight by the rules of war. They 
kill innocent people indiscriminately. That is their modus operandi. 
That is their preferred action.
  That is why they are enemy combatants, not prisoners of war. So we 
would not have to accord them any standards of treatment except that we 
are the United States of America and we say, and the President has said 
and Secretary Rumsfeld and everyone else in the Government has said, 
for the United States of America it is inappropriate to do anything 
less than treat people humanely, and we will not violate the Geneva 
accords.
  So even though they are not entitled to all of the rights of 
prisoners of war, there are standards of treatment that have been 
established and have been adhered to. In the few situations in which 
there is an allegation that maybe those standards might have been 
violated in some small way, the people have been held responsible who 
have violated the standards. I think there have been five cases of 
dealing inappropriately with the Koran at Guantanamo Bay, not having 
both hands on it at once or not having a white glove when dealing with 
a prisoner. It is that kind of violation.
  This kind of thing has been compared by some to Pol Pot and Nazi 
Germany and the Soviet gulag and the human rights abuses that the 
United Nations complains about each year. These comparisons are not 
apt. They are not responsible. They are not appropriate. They do not 
even begin to appropriately describe the kind of conduct that our 
people have engaged in and the crimes against humanity that were 
referred to. To even think of them in the same sense is unthinkable.
  What about the question about charging them? There is a suggestion 
they should either be charged or released. Well, this is not a fishing 
contest. This is not catch and release. This is serious. This is war. 
When somebody is trying to kill you and you can detain them, you do it. 
The alternative is, obviously, you kill them. But hopefully you do not 
have to kill them; you can detain them, and you can put them in a place 
that, until the end of the war, is safe for them and safe for you.
  For those who have committed war crimes, we have the option of 
charging them with such crimes, and there is a special tribunal set up 
to try them for those crimes, and they can be tried. Now, there are 
cases in the courts of appeal right now that are helping to define the 
parameters of those trials and until that is very clear those will not 
proceed, but that is the way we will deal with those cases.
  So for those that can be tried, obviously we will do that, but that 
is a very small percentage. There is no point in charging prisoners of 
war or enemy combatants with anything because the whole point of their 
being held is to prevent them from going back to war against you.
  The final purpose for this detention is intelligence gathering. We 
have found that human intelligence is the best intelligence and that 
the highest percentage of human intelligence is the interrogation that 
has occurred here and elsewhere that has led us to learn a lot about 
the techniques of the terrorists, their plans, the names of others, and 
other important information that has helped us save lives. So the point 
of this detention is to save lives, to keep people from killing us, and 
to get information that will help us to prevent future killing. That is 
an appropriate purpose of Guantanamo.
  So when people use irresponsible language, when they seem to leap to 
conclude that the United States must have done wrong simply because a 
lawyer or some group or a prisoner has alleged abuse--and by the way, 
remember that the al-Qaida training includes a manual instruction on 
how to allege that they are being abused as a prisoner, as a detainee. 
They are supposed to allege abuse, and they do. So let us not jump to 
the conclusion that any al-Qaida terrorist who alleges abuse at 
Guantanamo Bay must be right and all of the Americans, from the 
President on down, must be wrong. I like to put my chances on Americans 
trying to do the right thing. We will make mistakes, but we will try to 
correct those mistakes and punish those responsible. In the meantime, I 
think the benefit of the doubt goes to those people whom we have given 
a very hard job to do.
  To get back to my original point, the use of irresponsible language, 
irresponsible charges, has consequences. It can hurt those people that 
we put in harm's way by turning international public opinion against 
the United States. When responsible American officials make 
irresponsible charges, all the world listens. When they listen, 
sometimes they react very badly. It does our cause no good when--as 
some of my colleagues have said, this is all about winning the hearts 
and minds of the Muslim world. There is a great deal of truth in that. 
It does no good in that battle to denigrate our own actions in a way 
that is calculated to or one must know will inflame the passions of 
terrorists and others around the world

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that support the terrorists. It does no good to this ultimate goal of 
winning hearts and minds to unduly criticize America, Americans and 
American leaders for actions that are nothing more than what any Nation 
has the right to do when it captures people who have been engaged in 
combat or terrorism against it.
  I urge my colleagues to keep this issue in perspective, to understand 
the reason we detain people, to understand the impact of irresponsible 
language, to tone down the rhetoric, understand that the President and 
all acting on his behalf are trying their very best to do what we want 
them to do, and at the end of the day, this is all about winning the 
war on terror, saving American lives and moving on to a more peaceful 
world.
  Mr. FRIST. Madam President, in the past few weeks a number of 
allegations have been leveled against the Guantanamo Bay detention 
center.
  There have been some legitimate questions about the treatment of 
detainees, which is fair and responsible. The United States is governed 
by the rule of law. And it is proper for the Congress, in its oversight 
role, to ask the executive branch about such matters and make sure the 
interests of our constituents and the Nation are being properly 
addressed.
  That being said, in many cases, the allegations that have been made 
recently have been false, distorted or misreported.
  Newsweek, as we are all too familiar, erroneously reported that an 
American guard flushed a Koran down a toilet. That report, which was 
later withdrawn, resulted in widespread protests and the deaths of 
several individuals.
  When the facts came out, we learned that, in the 3 years that Gitmo 
has been in operation, there have only been 5 cases of ``mishandling'' 
of the Koran by our military staff.
  In those few instances where mistakes were made--and people do make 
mistakes--they were corrected and persons were held accountable.
  We also learned that the prisoners themselves had abused the Koran 15 
times, in some cases, reportedly, to implicate our soldiers in a 
religious crime.
  Multiple inquiries have found that the detainees at Guantanamo are 
being treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions and U.S. law. 
They are well fed and well housed. They have access to clean showers, 
Muslim chaplains, and even psychological counseling if they request it.
  Some might say they are living in more luxury and safety than our 
soldiers and marines fighting the terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq.
  Our service men and women in the field usually eat cold, packaged 
meals; sleep in crude living areas without beds; and often wonder if 
they will live to see the next day, all in the cause of promoting 
freedom and democracy and defending our country.
  One thing is for sure, the detainees are enemy combatants who were 
picked up off the battlefields of Afghanistan and elsewhere. They are 
hardened terrorists and have pledged their lives to jihad, the death of 
Americans, and the destruction of our country.
  They are being held at Guantanamo so they don't kill more Americans, 
either at home or abroad.
  They are being held at Guantanamo so that we can question them, so 
that we can prevent their colleagues from committing more terrorist 
acts.
  The intelligence we have learned about the terrorists, their 
networks, their plans, and so on, has been a treasure trove that has 
saved lives and is helping us win the war on terror.
  Personally, I am convinced that Guantanamo is humanely and fairly 
serving its much needed purpose. And I am also convinced that if we 
closed the camp, it wouldn't make one bit of difference to the 
terrorists who hate us and murdered 3,000 innocent American citizens 
before Guantanamo or the war on terror was ever conceived of.
  And it will make no difference to those who have agitated and 
protested against American policy from the very start.
  We can debate whether Guantanamo helps us save lives and win the war 
on terror. But what I can't stomach are the comparisons being made 
between Guantanamo and some of the most egregious symbols in the 
history of mankind.
  I am referring to the remarks of Amnesty International officials that 
compared the U.S.-run Guantanamo to the Soviet gulag.
  I am referring to the International Committee of the Red Cross 
official who reportedly compared U.S. soldiers to Nazis.
  And, regrettably, I am referring to a Senate colleague who, this 
week, called Guantanamo a ``death camp'' and drew parallels to Hitler's 
Germany, Stalin's gulags, and Pol Pot's killing fields.
  This was a heinous slander against our country, and against the brave 
men and women who have taken great care to treat the captured 
terrorists with more respect than they would ever have received in any 
point in human history.
  It is reported that nearly 9 million people were killed by Adolf 
Hitler; about 20.7 million were killed in the soviet gulags from 1929-
1953; and over 1.5 million people were killed in Cambodia from 1975 to 
1979.
  And there is no need to recount the brutal torture and manner in 
which many of these people died, most of whom, if not all, were 
innocent people.
  Do we know how many people have been killed at Guantanamo? Zero. 
That's right: zero people.
  And yet we have members of this body who have come to the Senate 
floor to level the most egregious charges, compare our troops to Nazis, 
and charge the United States with crimes against humanity. To accuse 
our sons and daughters, who are serving proudly to keep killers from 
the battlefield, with committing genocide and war crimes is beyond the 
pale.
  It is wrong to make these comparisons; it is wrong to suggest such 
things. It is unfair to our military; it is unfair to the American 
people; and it is unfair to this body. This is wrong and it is the 
worst form of demagoguery.
  It is anti-American and only fuels the animus of our enemies who are 
constantly searching for ways to portray our great country and our 
people as anti-Muslim, anti-Arab. It is this type of language that they 
use to recruit others to be car bombers; suicide attackers; hostage 
takers, and full-fledged jihadists.
  It is darkly ironic that those who want to close Guantanamo for the 
sake of public diplomacy are themselves wreaking great damage to our 
public diplomacy by floating outlandish and slanderous allegations.
  It has to stop. We can, and should, have serious debates about 
legitimate policy questions. But comparing our Nation, our Government 
and our military to the regimes of Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Soviet 
Russia, and Pol Pot's Cambodia is the height of irresponsibility.
  Frankly, I think it demands an apology to our service men and women, 
and to all others in our Government who are working hard every day to 
stop the terrorists, prevent attacks on our homeland, and to win the 
war on terrorism.
  We are fighting a war. And young men and women are out in the field, 
risking their lives. For their sake, the toxic rhetoric must stop.

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