Guantanamo Bay
Floor Speech
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, the safety of Americans, the security of America, should never be jeopardized for any reason, but certainly not simply for the purpose of fulfilling a campaign pledge.
The President recently released a plan about closing Guantanamo Bay, and it demonstrates to me--and I think to the American people--that his plan is misguided, as well as his priorities.
The proposal to close Guantanamo proves that his priority lies in leaving behind a legacy rather than protecting the American people and American national security. As a matter of fact, it presents nothing more than another attempt to fulfill a campaign promise and distracts, based on the timing, from the administration's failure to defeat ISIS.
Perhaps it explains why the administration missed a separate congressionally mandated deadline last week for a plan to counter radical Islamic extremism. So he missed that deadline but was on time for an incomplete plan to close Guantanamo and the detention facility for terrorists that remains on that post.
Now, Congress is a coequal branch of government. It is coequal to the President, equal in power, equal in representation of America's interests, and it has come to a different conclusion than the President. We have absolutely strong and justified reasons for our concern.
Mr. Speaker, last September, the Director of National Intelligence reported that 30 percent of transfer detainees are confirmed or suspected to be reengaging in terrorist activities. Thirty percent. They are not necessarily in some prison overseas; 30 percent of them are out running around conducting terrorist activities.
The director's report clearly shows that the detainee transfer process is deeply flawed. It poses a real, significant, unnecessary, and unacceptable risk to the security of our Nation.
Just this week, Spanish and Moroccan police arrested four members of a jihadi cell that sought to recruit for ISIS fighters, including one former Guantanamo detainee who once fought against Americans in Afghanistan. I mean, that is this week. I guess he is part of the 30 percent or maybe it is 30-point something now, and I suspect it will just keep going up the more we release.
The President claims that Guantanamo, GTMO, weakens our national security by furthering the recruiting propaganda of Islamist terrorist groups, essentially saying we can't keep these people in prison because it makes the terrorists mad and it makes them want to do more terrorist things.
I guess we shouldn't put gang members in prison either, because their gang buddies would then be mad and want to conduct more gang activities in their communities. Now, based on that logic, we should let all these people out.
Al Qaeda has waged war against the United States long before Guantanamo, long before the detention facility was constructed in Cuba; right? It didn't exist when the World Trade Center was first bombed in 1993, when the U.S. Embassies in East Africa and Tanzania and Kenya were bombed in 1998. It didn't exist when the USS Cole was attacked in 2000, and it certainly didn't exist on 9/11 when Islamists attacked our country.
Islamist terror organizations have been and will be at war with Western culture regardless of whether GTMO remains open or is closed. Of that, you can be sure.
The President claims cost savings. His plan, he says, to move or transfer detainees abroad and to the U.S. would lower costs between $140 million and $180 million annually, which is absolutely nothing to sneeze at. I will let everybody know: I had a hearing today in Homeland Security where they wasted $180 million on human resources programs-- that is $180 million gone--and 300-some-odd-million dollars for employees at the Department of Homeland Security that are home on leave because of doing something improper, while they adjudicate the issue.
While it is expensive, let's compare the cost, the immediate impact of not having these terrorists in prison.
The 9/11 attacks cost our country over $230 billion initially. So we are looking at $140 million to $180 million annually to $230 billion initially, and that doesn't include the damage made to the airline industry or the additional costs that our whole country has had to endure due to increased security, whether it is at the airport, whether it is at the grocery store, or whether it is in your home. And it certainly doesn't include the cost to our freedoms.
The President's proposal fails to provide the critical details required by law, the law that he signed. His proposal failed to provide critical details, including the exact cost and the location of an alternate facility. Where does he want to put it and how much does it cost? These are required by law, and he hasn't enumerated them. Yet he has had 7 years. This is a campaign pledge. He has had 7 years to come up with this information. Somehow this is Congress' fault? I don't think so. He is just simply unwilling or unable to state where he is going to keep these dangerous terrorists that are currently at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
Common sense tells us that the administration is simply avoiding fueling a political outcry when he specifies where these individuals are going to be held, because where he has even implied where they are going to be held, there has been a significant outcry, and it has been bipartisan.
Citizens of the United States don't want these terrorists in their neighborhood. They don't want them in their town. They don't want to be around them. That is exactly what the problem is with his proposal. The plan is just more politics and not any substance. It fails to satisfy the requirements mandated by Congress in the law that he, himself, signed.
You might ask who is still at GTMO. I mean, it has been years now going on. Who is still there? I want to remind everybody, Mr. Speaker, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the hijacking of United Airlines flight 93, that is who is there.
Or Mustafa Ahmed Hawsawi, who supported al Qaeda's terrorist network as a facilitator, financial manager, and media committee member. This support included the movement and funding of 9/11 hijackers to the U.S. to participate in terrorist attacks orchestrated by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He is affiliated with a number of high-level al Qaeda operatives. That is who is in that prison. Do you want him in your neighborhood? Do you want them in your neighborhood?
It is against the law to transfer these terrorist detainees to American soil. It is against the law. The President signed this law. A bipartisan majority in Congress has, year after year after year, reaffirmed restrictions on transferring these detainees to American soil.
As a matter of fact, the provisions of this were first included in the annual National Defense Authorization Act, the NDAA, in a Democrat- led Congress in 2009. So it is not partisan. In fact, the most recent NDAA passed with the same provisions with 370 votes in the House and 91 votes in the Senate before once again the President signed the law himself. He is simply attempting to make this a partisan issue by seeking to contradict the will of the American people through their duly elected representatives.
Ultimately, the plan is simply not safe. The American people don't want GTMO terrorists in their communities, in their backyard, and for good reason. These terrorists should be tried. They should be tried under the military tribunal provisions already laid out in the $10 million-plus courtroom facility that the taxpayers already paid for. Many of us have visited it. It is sitting right there on the post. We are waiting for these detainees to go to that courtroom that we paid for and be tried. That is fine with us. That is fine with Members of Congress, and that is fine with the American people. We don't need to bring them to America to do that. Congress is going to uphold its promise that any plan that seeks to transfer these dangerous war criminals does not happen.
I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Weber), my good friend.
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Mr. PERRY. I thank my good friend from Texas and agree with him that 30 percent is way too high. One is too many, but 30 percent is way--way too high.
I yield to my good friend from South Carolina (Mr. Duncan).
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Mr. PERRY. I think sometimes it seems like the President would like Americans to be more concerned with the rights of terrorists than their own rights.
I wonder about and think about all those MPs, all those members of the services that go down and do a tour at Guantanamo and have horrific things happen to them and still act professionally in the face of these terrorists every single day. That is who we should be thinking about, those people and the American people and their rights.
I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise), the majority whip.
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Mr. PERRY. I thank the majority whip for his passion and his remarks. While he talks about the battlefield, we are going to hear from somebody that has been to the battlefield.
The other thing about these terrorists that are spending their time in Guantanamo Bay is that they turned America into a battlefield in New York City.
I yield to my good friend, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Zeldin).
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, how much time remains?
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Mr. PERRY. Folks, there you have it. The case has been made. At this point, it is essentially irrefutable. You can't see what the upside is to bringing these people to the United States and closing the facility.
Al Qaeda, ISIS, radical Islamists, are not going to stop. They are never going to stop. It certainly has nothing to do with where people are detained. It has nothing to do with that.
They hate the West. They hate America. That is not going to change anytime soon. Allowing these people, these terrorists, to live within our community is not going to solve any part of that equation.
Mr. Speaker, the President has had 7 years to come up with a plan, 7 years for specifics, and, yet, he came this week and provided none of those specifics.
Earlier this year I asked the President about the details and about the transfer already conducted of these terrorists to other countries: What are the details? What has American given? How much has it cost us?
I didn't realize at the time that we have already transferred detainees to 55 countries around the world. We have no idea, as American citizens, from the most transparent administration in history--so-called by the administration--what the details of those arrangements are, but we do know this. These terrorists have been transferred to the likes of Yemen, Pakistan, Libya, Iran, and Iraq.
What kind of judgment is that, Mr. Speaker? We are sending terrorists from a detention facility to terrorist nations, nations where terrorism thrives, and expecting them not to reengage, expecting them not to join the fight.
They are going to join the fight and they are coming after us. The President needs to quit being selfish and needs to be responsible with the security of his country.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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