National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012

Floor Speech

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Ms. AYOTTE. Mr. President, first of all, I wish to thank Chairman Levin and Ranking Member McCain and remind everyone that this particular amendment addressing detainee provisions passed overwhelmingly on a bipartisan basis in the Armed Services Committee.

The reason we addressed this issue was because we heard witness after witness in a series of months before the Armed Services Committee from our Department of Defense tell us--for example, when I asked the commander of Africa Command, saying he needs some lawyerly help on how to answer what to do with a member of al-Qaida who is captured in Africa. This is an area that cried out for clarification, and that is the genesis of this amendment, which is a very important amendment.

Briefly, two issues. No. 1, the arguments that have been raised about section 1031, including the statement of authority, this is a red herring. This provision was drafted, as Senator Levin said very clearly, based upon what the administration wanted, and also codifies existing law on what the statement authority is in terms of the fact that we are at war with al-Qaida. If people want to disagree with that, that is certainly a policy discussion we can have. But we were attacked on our soil on 9/11, and this codifies the fact that we are at war with members of al-Qaida.

Section 1032 is the military custody provision. Let's be clear on what it does and what it does not do. No. 1, it is very clear on who it applies to. It only applies to members of al-Qaida or an associated force who are planning or carrying out an attack or attempted attack against the United States or its coalition partners. It does not apply to American citizens. We are only saying that if a person is a member of al-Qaida and they want to attack the United States, we are going to hold them in military custody. Why? I prosecuted cases in the criminal system. We don't want to have to----

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Ms. AYOTTE. We don't ever want to have to read a terrorist their right to remain silent. That is the issue here.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor

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