[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 9554-9556]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        GUANTANAMO BAY DETAINEES

  Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I rise today to raise an issue that has been 
of growing concern to the American people: the exchange of the so-
called Taliban Five--five terrorist detainees from Guantanamo--in 
exchange for Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl.
  Let me say from the outset, this is not about Sergeant Bergdahl. The 
circumstances under which he became a prisoner of the Taliban is an 
issue for the Army. There was an investigation into this matter in 
2010, and hopefully the Army will be able to bring clarity to that 
situation soon. What I wish to speak about today is keeping the 
American people safe from the terrorists who attacked us on September 
11, 2001, resulting in the deaths of 2,977 innocent people.
  The Taliban Five are among the worst of the worst. They were all 
high-level officials in the Taliban regime who gave aid and support to 
Al Qaeda in Afghanistan in the period leading up to the 9/11 attacks. 
These five were designated ``high'' risk by the Guantanamo Review Task 
Force convened in 2009 on the orders of President Obama, whose report 
was published on January 22, 2010. Two of the five are wanted by the 
United Nations for war crimes against Afghan civilians.
  Khairullah Khairkhwa, for example, was described in his GTMO case 
file as ``a hard-liner in Taliban philosophy'' with ``close ties to 
Osama bin Laden.'' Mohammad Fazl was second in command of the Taliban 
army in 2001. These were not junior-level players.
  Capturing these five men was a priority when our troops participated 
in the liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban in 2001, where our 
sons and daughters bled and died to free Afghanistan and to exact 
punishment on those who carried out a horrific terrorist attack on the 
United States of America. We cannot know for sure how many American 
soldiers paid the ultimate price to capture these five senior 
terrorists.
  Even as many other detainees at GTMO have been released, up until 
now, these five have been considered too dangerous to let go. Given the 
level of threat they represent, any proposal to release them should be 
of the utmost seriousness. Unfortunately, by all indications the 
administration's release treated their threat as anything but serious.
  Americans need to know how the Obama administration thinks it has 
made our Nation safer by negotiating with terrorists to release these 
five dangerous terrorist leaders. Until President Obama can make his 
case and convince the American public that this swap was in our 
national interests, prudence dictates that all further transfers and 
releases from Guantanamo Bay should be off the table.
  Unfortunately, there have been no answers from this administration on 
how this deal furthers the national security interests of the American 
people or why the deal was so urgent that the administration refused to 
comply with its legal obligation to inform Congress 30 days before the 
transfer. Instead, the administration has vilified those who would 
raise questions about it as somehow not being concerned about securing 
the return of our troops. That attack--that slur--shouldn't even be 
dignified by a response, particularly given what has been publicly 
admitted.

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  President Obama has publicly admitted that there is ``absolutely'' a 
chance of the Taliban Five returning to the battlefield and attacking 
Americans.
  Indeed, the current Taliban leadership has announced that from their 
perspective this deal is so good for them that they should now 
prioritize kidnapping other Americans. For example, last Thursday one 
top Taliban commander told Time magazine--and this is a quote--``It's 
better to kidnap one person like Bergdahl than kidnapping hundreds of 
useless people. It has encouraged our people. Now everybody will work 
hard to capture such an important bird.''
  This deal puts every soldier, sailor, airman, and marine--every man 
and woman standing up to defend this Nation--in jeopardy.
  The chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Dianne 
Feinstein, has publicly said that she has seen ``no evidence'' that 
Sergeant Bergdahl was under urgent threat in recent weeks or months.
  All of these admissions together raise serious and legitimate 
concerns about the circumstances of the release of the Taliban Five, 
and they also make clear that the administration should stop vilifying 
any who raise these national concerns. Instead, the President should 
stand up and honor his commitment to the American people, defend this 
decision in terms of the national security interests of the United 
States--what should be the highest priority for the Commander in Chief.
  Instead, we have recently learned from news reports that there are at 
least four other Gitmo detainees who are being considered for release. 
So not only has there not been accountability as to why this happened, 
but it appears the administration wants to go down the same road and I 
can only assume is willing again to violate the law and not notify 
Congress the next time, just the way it violated the law by not 
notifying Congress this time.
  Before any further such action is considered, we need to take a pause 
and assess what happened with the Taliban Five. We need to answer:
  Who did the vetting that resulted in the assessment that the Taliban 
Five no longer posed a high level of threat to the United States?
  Who participated in the decision to release them?
  Was this the same deal the administration says they offered to brief 
Congress on previously or is it something different?
  Was the President fully briefed on the background of the Taliban Five 
and the likelihood of recidivism?
  How did the administration reach its apparently high level of 
confidence that the Taliban Five will be secure in Qatar?
  How did they arrive upon the notion that that security should last 
only 1 year, after which the American people will be safe if these 
terrorists are released altogether? On what basis did the 
administration judge that only 1 year was sufficient?
  How was the decision made to ignore the law and bypass Congress, 
including bypassing the chairs of the Senate and House Intelligence 
Committees, Foreign Relations Committees, and Armed Services 
Committees?
  In what circumstances does the administration intend once again to 
openly defy the law and refuse to provide notification to Congress?
  These are questions, I might note, that should be bipartisan 
concerns. This should not be a partisan affair--asking questions that 
affect the national security of every single American citizen and every 
single man and woman serving in the military.
  In order to give the Obama administration the opportunity to satisfy 
the many outstanding questions the American people have about their 
safety--and I would note, having just returned from Texas, I found over 
and over again Texans, men and women, asking these very questions--I 
will propose this week that before we consider any additional releases 
from Guantanamo, we answer these questions first.
  The legislation I will be filing, No. 1, will immediately call for a 
6-month freeze on any Federal Government funding to transfer detainees 
from Guantanamo. No. 2, to enforce this requirement, the legislation 
will provide that, should the President choose to disregard this law--
as, sadly, has been his pattern so many other times--all funds expended 
in the transfer would be deducted directly from the budget of the 
Executive Office of the President. No. 3, because we understand that 
conditions might possibly arise that would necessitate the release of 
an individual prisoner and out of respect for the President's special 
role in international matters, this legislation explicitly provides a 
means for the President to ask Congress for a waiver of the 6-month bar 
in an individual case. But, finally, because we believe the release of 
detainees from Guantanamo--which holds some of the most dangerous 
people on the planet--is a matter of the gravest import, this 
legislation would require that for every order for release of a 
Guantanamo detainee, it must be personally approved by the President. 
This would ensure that the fullest consideration and deliberation goes 
into the process.
  This latest deal--which was announced to the American people as a 
fait accompli, with no opportunity for Congress to scrutinize it, no 
opportunity for the American people to assess it--this latest deal 
constituted negotiating with terrorists to release five senior 
terrorist leaders, and it raises obvious questions.
  First of all, how many Americans did these five terrorist leaders 
directly or indirectly murder? How many lives--American lives--are they 
responsible for taking?
  Second, how many American soldiers gave their lives to capture these 
five senior terrorist leaders? How many graves do we have of sons and 
daughters of Americans because they were sent in to capture these five 
who have just been released?
  Third, given their release--and the President's admission that there 
is ``absolutely'' a chance that they will return to actively waging war 
against the United States--how many Americans are at risk of being 
killed directly or indirectly by these terrorist leaders we have just 
let go?
  Finally, if the Taliban Five do return to actively trying to kill 
Americans, how many American soldiers will once again have to risk 
their lives or, indeed, will give their lives trying to kill or capture 
these terrorists once again?
  These are questions of the utmost seriousness, and to date the 
administration has not even attempted to answer them. Instead, it has 
suggested that anyone raising these questions is simply failing to 
stand by the men and women of our military. I can tell you, the men and 
women of our military understand the value of protecting the national 
security of the United States of America, and the men and women of our 
military are not comforted by negotiations with terrorists to release 
senior terrorist leaders who can once again begin actively waging war 
on the United States.
  Every American is naturally eager to end the long war in Afghanistan, 
but that does not mean we disregard the threat that violent terrorist 
groups such as the Taliban pose to our Nation. We know from the hard 
experience of the last decade that at least one in three Guantanamo 
detainees has returned to the battlefield. That has been what history 
has taught us.
  Until we have full confidence that this threat to American lives is 
being fully and properly assessed, that we are taking steps to protect 
the lives of American civilians and American soldiers and sailors and 
airmen and marines, it is only prudent to take the steps in the 
legislation I am introducing this week, and I hope the Senate will do 
so.
  With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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