[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 17689-17690]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             GUANTANAMO BAY

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I do want to briefly comment on a very 
short trip I took on Sunday, when I visited Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, along 
with Senator McConnell and Senator Specter.
  It was my first visit to the detainee facility there. We received 
extensive briefings over the course of the day from Admiral Harris and 
other base administrators. We took that opportunity to tour five of the 
detainee camps, as well as visit the medical facilities and visit with 
the health personnel there.
  Bottom line, I left there very impressed with the care and the 
respect our military affords the detainees kept at Guantanamo. As most 
of my colleagues know who have visited there--and I am glad to report 
that many have visited there over the last several years--each detainee 
receives a copy of the Koran. Arrows in each of the detainees' cells 
point to Mecca. You see arrows throughout the prison grounds. That 
makes it easier, and it is a reminder that these individuals have that 
opportunity to practice their faith, with prayer time occurring five 
times every day, where everything stops, and that time is set aside so 
that prayer can be offered.
  It was interesting from a health standpoint. The meals themselves are 
nutritious meals. And I looked at a lot of the charts, aggregate 
charts, and, indeed, detainees gain weight from these meals. They get 
regular exercise. It might be as much as 2 hours a day--but 1 to 2 
hours a day. They receive mail from their families. They visit 
privately with their lawyers. They have medical care, which again was 
amazing to me, which is 24/7, acute care as well as preventive care 
literally 24 hours a day.
  When the camp first opened, much of the medical care was centered 
around the treatment of acute care or injuries that may have occurred 
in the battlefield or the like. Prosthetics were made. I think they 
said 22 prosthetics had been made for the detainees who have been at 
the facility.
  The nature of health care has shifted a bit. There is still acute 
care 24 hours a day, in which surgical procedures, everything, can be 
performed right there in the detainee camps, but as those wounds healed 
and as the detainees got further and further away from acute injuries, 
there has been increasing emphasis on preventative care. Indeed, the 
immunization rate there is higher than in the United States of America.
  I think the report is they have had fewer than 500 detainees, but all 
have been immunized appropriately. Things such as screening for cancer 
have taken place there. Colonoscopies--a procedure which, as we all 
know, is used commonly in this country to screen for colon cancer--are 
performed there on a routine basis.
  The health personnel-to-detainee ratio is 1 to 4--remarkably high. 
That is all health personnel who are there. And I guess, as I left this 
briefing and the opportunity to talk to the doctors and the nurses and 
the psychologists and the psychiatrists, I left with an impression that 
health care there is clearly better than they received at home and as 
good as many people receive in the United States of America.
  Also, I have to comment on the courageous men and women who are our 
military personnel there, working every day, 24 hours a day. They are 
doing a tremendous job. I commend them for it. As you walk through the 
cells, it is clear they are at least verbally abused in just walking 
through

[[Page 17690]]

those cells. I know they are under a great deal of stress in carrying 
out their activities every day.
  Our men and women, in spite of that sort of verbal abuse--and clearly 
at risk of physical assault--remain focused on their mission to provide 
the detainees there safe and humane treatment but, at the same time, 
simultaneously protecting Americans from the deadly plots that have 
been hatched by many of those detainees who are there.
  As we all know from the President's comments and speeches over the 
last week or so, on that island today are some of the world's most 
hardened enemy combatants, terrorists. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is there, 
the man the 9/11 Commission described as the ``principal architect of 
the 9/11 attacks.'' The fact that we have the presence of them--we did 
not see them, we did not even ask to go to their facility--but the fact 
that they are there is a vivid reminder that the detainees at 
Guantanamo do remain locked up for a critical purpose: to protect 
Americans. We were reminded of that again and again as we listened to 
the stories about the backgrounds of the types of people who are there. 
I left there with no question in my mind that many would return to what 
they were doing before they were captured; that is, plotting new ways 
to attack us. We know some who have been released have, indeed, 
returned to the battlefield. And that has been well documented.
  There has been a lot of debate recently on how we should prosecute 
these terrorists, these enemy combatants. Soon we will be addressing 
that issue once again on the floor of the Senate, as we should. But I 
think we should all be very clear in our own thinking that these men 
are dangerous terrorists who remain a threat to the safety and well-
being of every American. They are militant extremists whose goal in 
life is to kill Americans, is to destroy our freedom and security.
  Mr. President, as we were reminded through remembrances and through 
the ceremonies of yesterday and through the discussions yesterday, 9/11 
shattered our longstanding illusions of safety and security in this 
country. As we learned then and have since learned--on no less than 11 
occasions--safety and security are not static states, but they are 
dynamic, they are constantly changing, in constant flux. That means we 
cannot just enact a bill and then move on and say that is sufficient. 
We have to continuously, in this body, take stock of where we are, 
assess and reassess and implement changes when necessary.
  We have done just that over the last 5 years. As of August, we passed 
71 laws and other bills related to the war on terror. The next step is 
the bill we are debating today; that is, the Port Security Improvement 
Act. It provides additional authorities and tools critical to improving 
our port security and our maritime security--and to foil plots to 
injure us or to destroy our ports, to the detriment of hard-working 
Americans and to the detriment of our economy.
  Very soon we will take up legislation that strengthens and modernizes 
our foreign intelligence surveillance laws, as well as legislation that 
authorizes military commissions to prosecute terrorists for war crimes, 
such as those who are currently detained at Guantanamo Bay.
  Without these tools, we simply cannot guarantee the safety and 
security of the American people. That is why they are being addressed 
on the floor right now. That is what hangs in the balance: the safety 
and security of the American people. On this floor, we are not going to 
always agree on the approach, but it is a goal I believe every one of 
my colleagues shares.
  As we move forward in this body over the next couple weeks, I hope we 
do remain focused on that goal, ensuring the safety and security of the 
American people.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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