Conference Call on Closing the Detention Facility at Guantanamo Bay

Interview

Conference Call on Closing the Detention Facility at Guantanamo Bay

Briefers: Senator Jack Reed (D-RI); Heather Hurlburt, Executive Director, National Security Network; Ken Gude, Director of Research, International Rights and Responsibilities Program, Center for American Progress

Moderator: Chris Mcgrath, Spokesman, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)

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MR. MCGRATH: Hi, everybody. This is Chris McGrath from Senator Harry Reid's office. We've got Senator Jack Reed on the phone, and Heather Hurlburt from the National Security Network, and Ken Gude from the Center for American Progress. So the senator is just going to open up with some remarks. Senator?

SEN. REED: I thank you. The president has made the determination that Guantanamo should be closed. That determination has drawn bipartisan support. Senator McCain, Senator -- former Secretary of State Colin Powell all have suggested that Guantanamo was counterproductive to our security. It gives our adversaries propaganda. It has not provided us the kind of advantage in this war of ideas that we need.

And the president is embarking very carefully and deliberately with the development of an approach to bring these individuals to justice to determine their culpability, but ultimately to protect Americans by ensuring that those who continue to harbor designs and continue to perpetrate terrorist activities will never see the light of day, and I think that's something important to emphasize.

This issue has become somewhat a political topic at the moment, but the substance has been the need to close the facility, to bring these individuals to justice, and to protect our country and the world indeed from these unrepentant terrorists. And that's something I'm confident the president can and will do.

Let me now call on Heather Hurlburt. Heather?

MS. HULBURT: Thank you, Senator. Just a couple more things to emphasize points that the senator made.

There was, before January, a strong bipartisan consensus that the facility needed to be closed. In fact, Senator McCain said in the campaign that he would close the facility on his first day in office and bring all of the detainees to the United States. Five former secretaries of State from both parties have called for it to be closed. General Petraeus and other sitting member of the military have called for it to be closed.

So there really isn't any dispute except, as Senator Reed said, among a certain number of people who are trying to use it for political advantage, about closing the facility. And what we're in right now is the middle of a process where the administration is working through the how, and what we're waiting for and what the senator is waiting for is to go through exactly the how, but, you know, in a departure from the previous eight years where you would have things advance sort of for ideological reasons and then the details worked out or not worked out later.

Here you have the administration actually trying to put forward a comprehensive plan, which will include who you bring to the U.S., who you don't bring to the U.S., and how the hard-working and very dedicated men and women in our military and corrections services will keep them safe, as they already do thousands of dangerous prisoners every day.

So we're in a situation where we can feel very confident in our law enforcement officials, in our military officials, all of whom the president is consulting, and we're sort of stuck in the middle of this process as we look for a comprehensive policy that will address those questions and not just use them for political advantage.

And I'll now turn to Ken Gude, who is going to make a few specific comments on the human rights piece of this.

MR. GUDE: Well, thank you, Heather, and thank you, Senator Reed.

I want to echo everything that they have said. Closing Guantanamo is a national security imperative. Americans will be safer, unquestionably safer, with Guantanamo closed and the detainees that wish to do us harm in the future locked away in secure maximum security federal and military prisons. There is just no question about that.

What it means when we say that Guantanamo is a recruiting tool for al Qaeda, that means that they have more terrorists in their ranks. They have more terrorists to commit attacks against our soldiers and Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan. It means there are more casualties for our soldiers and Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan. It means there are more terrorists worldwide, more terrorist attacks worldwide. The overall threat level is higher with Guantanamo open than it is with Guantanamo closed.

And if I could address some of the specific concerns that have been percolating here in the political debate about Guantanamo.

I find it very odd that the Republicans in the House and the Senate have chosen to focus their attention on essentially a fear- mongering campaign that we are somehow not safe with these terrorists locked away in American prisons.

If that is true, we have had a national security emergency for the last 20 years. We have some of the world's more dangerous terrorists locked away in American prisons, and they have been securely locked away. Nobody has heard anything from them since they went to the super-max facility in Florence, Colorado or other maximum security prisons.

Ramzi Yousef, who was the mastermind of the first World Trade Center plot and the foiled Bojinka Pacific airliner plot, he's been in custody in the United States since 1996 and nobody really hears anything about him.

Dozens of other terrorists have been captured, not only in the United States but have been captured abroad and brought to the United States for trial and incarceration. Our system is perfectly capable of handling both their trial and their incarceration in the United States and keeping Americans safe.

I find it offensive to say that these -- for the Republicans to say that the men and women who are charged with the responsibility of securing these detainees, whether they would be in our existing federal military prisons -- federal prisons or in military prisons are not up to the job. That's a terrible message to be sending to those communities, that they themselves, who are the one who are charged with these responsibilities, can't keep Americans safe.

So I think I'll conclude with that, and I'd be happy to take any questions.

SEN. REED: This is Jack Reed again. Any questions?

Q Yes, Senator Reed, this is Josh Rogin from Congressional Quarterly. As the supplemental bill comes to the Senate floor tomorrow or this week, Republicans are preparing several amendments to try to have their views on the Guantanamo detainee relocation issue made into law. I'm wondering, what will Democrats do? Will they have their own amendments? And what is the compromise or the language that Democrats will try to push as part of the supplemental debate?

SEN. REED: I think that question might be more properly addressed to Senator Harry Reid, but from my perspective I believe very strongly that the president is proceeding in a very thoughtful way, a very deliberate way. He is fulfilling his commitments, but also, as my colleagues have suggested, a broad bipartisan sense of support that at least existed a few weeks ago.

So I hope we would be able to allow this process to go forward, to allow the funds to go forward so that this process can continue. And that's my response in general.

Q Thank you.

Q Senator Reed, this Roxana Tiron at The Hill newspaper.

SEN. REED: Yes?

Q There are several of your colleagues, including Senator Webb, who have expressed concern about moving prisoners to the United States, and obviously has said that he is opposing that. And you've had Senator Inouye also expressing concern, and several other Democrats. How do you think -- I mean, how do you think that you can keep sort of a cohesion within the Democrats to support President Obama on this issue?

SEN. REED: Well, I think, again, it's important to maintain the effort to continue to close the Guantanamo facility. I think it's also -- I mean, I would make an appeal, let's let the president have the opportunity to do the detailed planning.

But also, I think what was particularly compelling was Ken Gude's comments. I mean, there are notorious terrorists who have been convicted in our courts, under our rules, and have been incarcerated now upwards of a decade and have not posed a threat to America. In fact, it has removed serious threat to America and the world.

So I think that evidence -- and if we can get to the evidence and the facts, I think hopefully we can persuade mostly all of my colleagues. I recognize -- (inaudible) -- the Senate to take a position based upon the, in the case of may of my colleagues, not only careful thought but experience, but this is one where I think the facts should be supportive of giving the president at least the opportunity to allow this process to move forward.

Q Have you been privy to any of the president's plans, because when Secretary Gates testified that they really didn't have anything -- you know, anything planned -- they're still working out the basics. I'm wondering whether maybe you are more privy to any of the ideas that they're, you know --

SEN. REED: I know the president has assembled legal experts and national security experts and is asking for their advice, and I am not privy to the details but the negotiations -- the discussion rather than negotiations -- but I think what the president wants to do is rather than have a sort of a piecemeal approach, I think he wants, or the public deserves, sort of a here's what we're going to do in much more comprehensive way, and that I think could well take some time, the deliberation that's going on now. I have not been involved in the discussions.

Q Thank you.

Q Senator Reed Jeremy Pelofsky with Reuters. You know, the president, on Thursday, is going to address Guantanamo and the policies. What do you think he -- what do you expect him to say and what do you think he needs to say?

SEN. REED: I think, first, he has to once again underscore how much damage to our image in the world Guantanamo has done. As Ken pointed out, not only has this provided a tool to terror groups to recruit, terror groups to proselytize, but also among the populations of traditional allies this has caused a great deal of uneasiness and even stark criticism.

So if we want to truly rally the world to cooperative effort, which is necessary against terrorism, this is a -- this is an issue that has to be resolved. I think, second, he should -- again, along the lines of what both Heather and Ken have suggested is that this, until very recently, was a bipartisan one in which both Senator McCain, an eminent Republican, and Secretary Powell -- (inaudible) -- to close it.

Third, that this is an issue that we've dealt with before, and no one, I think, has made a point of rallying on the floor of the Senate or going on a talk show when we've incarcerated some very dangerous people in maximum security facilities in the United States.

I think the other point, too, of getting down the hierarchy is that, you know, there probably are going to be a handful of individuals who cannot be successfully repatriated to their home country or in some other way disposed of that might come back here, but the bottom line here is that anyone that continues to pose a threat to the United States will not be set free -- (inaudible).

Anybody else? If not, thank you all for your great help. And, Ken and Heather, I've been doing all the talking. Do you have a word, can I ask you?

MS. HULBURT: No, I thought the one thing, Senator, to add onto your last point is that there have in fact been communities around the country that have spoken up and said actually, the people who are complaining about this in Washington don't speak for us people in Leavenworth, back in January who said, hey, we're here because it's our job to hold dangerous people; people in Montana who said, bring a prison here; people in Michigan who said, let us build a prison here, we could use the jobs.

So I think it's been represented in an entirely false way, that there are, as all three of us have said, people around the country who feel more than confident in our ability to handle whatever comprehensive plan for this the administration comes up with.

SEN. REED: Ken?

MR. GUDE: Well, I'd just like to close by reminding everyone that we are in month four of a 12-month process, and that the president has set about a very deliberate plan to hear from all of the agencies, bring all of their ideas to the table, ensure that the actual final program for closing Guantanamo is one that can be done with the full support of the U.S. government and can be done -- and the American people can have confidence, the utmost confidence, that every decision is being made with their security in mind.

I find it odd that a careful and deliberate plan like that is being criticized, and the reverse of what we've had over the past eight years where we just rushed headlong into decisions without fully appreciating the implications of each and every issue.

And so I'm hopeful here that the president will be talking again on Thursday about the need and the rationale for closing Guantanamo and chart a good course forward.

SEN. REED: Right. Thank you all. Bye-bye.

MS. HULBURT: Bye-bye.

END.

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