"Senate votes to block" Obama's Gitmo plan

[wtnhunt]

Could be interesting to see how this story plays out http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090520/ap_on_go_co/us_congress_guantanamo.

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer Andrew Taylor, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 16 mins ago

WASHINGTON – In a major rebuke to President Barack Obama, the Senate voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to block the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the United States and denied the administration the millions it sought to close the prison.

The 90-6 Senate vote — paired with similar House action last week — was a clear sign to Obama that he faces a tough fight getting the Democratic-controlled Congress to agree with his plans to shut down the detention center and move the 240 detainees.

The vote came as FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress that bringing Guantanamo detainees to the United States could pose a number of risks, even if they were kept in maximum-security prisons. Mueller's testimony to a House panel put him at odds with the president and undercut the administration's arguments for shuttering the facility.

"The concerns we have about individuals who may support terrorism being in the United States run from concerns about providing financing, radicalizing others," Mueller said, as well as "the potential for individuals undertaking attacks in the United States."

Last month, Obama asked for $80 million for the Pentagon and the Justice Department to close the facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by January. In the eyes of the world, the prison has come to exemplify harsh U.S. anti-terror tactics and detention without trial for almost all of its inmates, most of whom were captured in Afghanistan.

The administration put its Democratic allies in a difficult spot by requesting the Guantanamo closure money before developing a plan for what to do with its detainees.

Obama is scheduled to give a major address Thursday outlining in more detail his plans for Guantanamo, but it's already clear that many in Congress have little appetite for bringing detainees to U.S. soil, even if the inmates would be held in maximum-security prisons.

In recent weeks, Republicans have called for keeping Guantanamo open, saying abuses at the facility are a thing of the past and describing it as a state-of-the-art prison that's nicer than some U.S. prisons. And they warn that terrorists who can't be convicted might be set free in the United States.

"The American people don't want these men walking the streets of America's neighborhoods," Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said Wednesday. "The American people don't want these detainees held at a military base or federal prison in their backyard, either."

In another development Wednesday, a federal judge said the United States can continue to hold some prisoners at Guantanamo indefinitely without any charges.

Obama's new Pentagon policy chief, Michele Flournoy, said it's unrealistic to think that no detainees will come to the United States, and that the government can't ask allies to take detainees while refusing to take on the same burden.

"When we are asking allies to do their fair share in dealing with this challenge we need to do our fair share," Flournoy told reporters.

Obama ally Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., pointed out that not a single prisoner has ever escaped from a federal "supermax" prison and that 347 convicted terrorists are already being held in U.S. prisons.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, among the few Republicans joining former GOP presidential nominee John McCain of Arizona in calling for Guantanamo to be closed, scoffed at the idea that the government can't find a way to hold Guantanamo prisoners in the United States. Graham noted that 400,000 German and Japanese prisoners were held during World War II.

"The idea that we cannot find a place to securely house 250-plus detainees within the United States is not rational. We have done this before," Graham said. "But it is my belief that you need a plan before you close Gitmo."

While allies such as Durbin have cast the development as a delay of only a few months, other Democrats have made it plain they don't want any of Guantanamo's detainees sent to the United States to stand trial or serve prison sentences.

Despite the setback, some Democrats said Obama should not be underestimated.

"The president's very capable of putting together a plan that I think will win the approval of a majority of members of Congress," said moderate Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson. "I can't imagine that he won't."

[FireStrut]

Yep, very interesting.

[stevebeilgard]

even the liberal dems are getting calls from the folks they "represent"...

[m gardner]

Pretty funny that the very things the liberals have been so hard on Dick Cheney for promoting they eventually do.:D:D

I'm loving this one.

mark

[Washi]

It costs $80 million just to close the place down?

[GWSmith]

It costs $80 million just to close the place down?

We could be more accurate if we have just one more figure:

How much does it cost to fly a couple bomb ladened B-52's for a few hours?

[wtnhunt]

It costs $80 million just to close the place down?

..........and with no plan in place at all, just another fine example of the kind of careless and imo wreckless waste of taxpayer dollars. Lets just throw money at the problem no matter what the problem seems to be the mentality of the Obama admin. Maybe just maybe more folks will start to take notice.

Kind of shocked me too to see Harry Reid speaking out about concerns with bringing the gitmo prisoners here.

[Texan_Til_I_Die]

..........and with no plan in place at all, just another fine example of the kind of careless and imo wreckless waste of taxpayer dollars...

What else should we expect with children in charge????

[wtnhunt]

Cheney fires back

What Obama fails to face is the fact that we have not had an attack on our soil since Sept 11th 2001. Seems he continues to point the finger at Bush rather than coming up with real solutions other than throwing money at problems and hoping they go away.

From earlier today:

Josh Gerstein, Jonathan Martin Josh Gerstein, Jonathan Martin – Thu May 21, 12:34 pm ET

In an extraordinary crosstown debate carried live across the airwaves, President Barack Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney battled Thursday over the Bush administration’s war on terror, with Cheney issuing a scathing rejection of the new president’s policies and saying Obama is leaving the nation exposed to attack.

Cheney accused those who call Bush interrogation practices torture – as Obama has – of engaging in “contrived indignation and phony moralizing on the interrogation methods applied to a few captured terrorists.”

And he urged Obama to make future national security choices based not on “slogans and campaign rhetoric, but on a truthful telling of history.”

Obama, in turn, said President George W. Bush decimated the nation’s values and beliefs in a hastily conceived, poorly executed plan that left him a “mess” at Guantanamo Bay prison and American’s image abroad in tatters.

Obama said the only responsible way to clean up problems at Gitmo is to bring some prisoners to the U.S. for trial, despite the intense resistance to that idea in Congress.

“In dealing with this situation, we do not have the luxury of starting from scratch. We are cleaning up something that is – quite simply – a mess; a misguided experiment that has left in its wake a flood of legal challenges that my Administration is forced to deal with on a constant basis,” Obama said. “The problem exists because of the decision to open Guantanamo in the first place.”

In his remarks, Obama renewed his pledge to close the U.S. military prison in Cuba, made in an executive order issued on his second full day in office – but he did not repeat his promise to shutter the facility by January of next year.

But it was Cheney who was on the attack in his speech at the American Enterprise Institute, leveling a broadside against Obama at a time when some in the Republican party want to move forward rather than re-litigate the unpopular Bush years.

He portrayed Obama as so concerned with his public image, at home and abroad, that he was willing to compromise in the fight against terrorism.

“If liberals are unhappy about some decisions, and conservatives are unhappy about other decisions, then it may seem to them that the President is on the path of sensible compromise,” Cheney said. “But in the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground, and half-measures keep you half exposed.”

“You cannot keep just some nuclear-armed terrorists out of the United States, you must keep every nuclear-armed terrorist out of the United States. Triangulation is a political strategy, not a national security strategy,” Cheney said. “There is never a good time to compromise when the lives and safety of the American people are in the balance. “

On the specific issues of the harsh interrogation practices and the Guantanamo detention center, Cheney was equally aggressive.

“The released memos were carefully redacted to leave out references to what our government learned through the methods in question,” the former vice president said of the declassified documents released last month. “Other memos, laying out specific terrorist plots that were averted, apparently were not even considered for release. For reasons the administration has yet to explain, they believe the public has a right to know the method of the questions, but not the content of the answers.”

He added: “Releasing the interrogation memos was flatly contrary to the national security interest of the United States.”

On the controversial detention center, Cheney asserted Obama’s decision was rooted in politics not the safety of Americans – and that the move this week by the Senate to strip funding for closing the facility underscored the difficulty of closing it down.

“The administration has found that it’s easy to receive applause in Europe for closing Guantanamo,” Cheney said. “But it’s tricky to come up with an alternative that will serve the interests of justice and America’s national security.”

For all his criticism of Obama – and he even tweaked the president for his lengthy speech, noting that it underscored his roots in the Senate – Cheney also presented a detailed defense of the controversial steps taken in the wake of 9/11 and reminded exactly who it was the tactics since were being used again.

He recounted the terrorist attacks leading up to that day and then recounted with at times graphic language those attacks – recalling the attack on the Twin Towers and “the final horror for those who jumped to their death to escape burning alive.”

After his reminder of the terrorist threat, Cheney accused Obama of making the wrong judgment about the dangers: “You can look at the facts and conclude that the comprehensive strategy has worked, and therefore needs to be continued as vigilantly as ever. Or you can look at the same set of facts and conclude that 9/11 was a one-off event – coordinated, devastating, but also unique and not sufficient to justify a sustained wartime effort.”

In his remarks, delivered in front of a display of U.S. founding documents at the National Archives, Obama did not rule out releasing some Guantanamo prisoners in the U.S. However, he did not affirmatively say that he would do so.

“We are not going to release anyone if it would endanger our national security, nor will we release detainees within the United States who endanger the American people,” the president said. “Where demanded by justice and national security, we will seek to transfer some detainees to the same type of facilities in which we hold all manner of dangerous and violent criminals within our borders – highly secure prisons that ensure the public safety.”

Obama acknowledged the uproar on Capitol Hill this week that led to a 90-6 Senate vote blocking funding for any transfer of Guantanamo prisoners to the U.S.

“As our efforts to close Guantanamo move forward, I know that the politics in Congress will be difficult. These issues are fodder for 30-second commercials and direct mail pieces that are designed to frighten. I get it,” he said. “We will not be safe if we see national security as a wedge that divides America.”

Still, much of Obama’s speech pinned blame squarely on the Bush administration both for opening Guantanamo and for authorizing aggressive interrogation techniques critics have compared to torture. The president said the U.S. essentially ceded the moral high ground by undermining America’s historic role as a beacon of freedom.

“Unfortunately, faced with an uncertain threat, our government made a series of hasty decisions,” Obama said. “I believe that many of those decisions were motivated by a sincere desire to protect the American people. But I believe that – too often – our government made decisions based upon fear rather than foresight, and all too often our government trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions.”

While Obama laid considerable blame on the Bush administration, he said most Americans shared responsibility for the excesses by not speaking out more vocally in the wake of the 9/11 attack.

“During this season of fear, too many of us – Democrats and Republicans; politicians, journalists and citizens – fell silent. In other words, we went off course,” he said.

Obama argued that so-called enhanced interrogation techniques employed on alleged Al Qaeda operatives were unnecessary and counterproductive.

“I know some have argued that brutal methods like water-boarding were necessary to keep us safe. I could not disagree more. As Commander-in-Chief, I see the intelligence, I bear responsibility for keeping this country safe, and I reject the assertion that these are the most effective means of interrogation,” Obama said. “They did not advance our war and counter-terrorism efforts – they undermined them, and that is why I ended them once and for all.”

Obama noted that waterboarding and other aggressive techniques were opposed by influential figures in the Bush administration, such as Secretary of State Colin Powell. “Those who argued for these tactics were on the wrong side of the debate and the wrong side of history,” the president said.

“I believe with every fiber of my being that in the long run we…cannot keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our must fundamental values,” Obama said. “We uphold our most cherished values not only because doing so is right, but because it strengthens out country and keeps us safe. Time and again, out values have been our best national security asset.”

Obama said a “poorly planned and haphazard” approach to release of more than 500 detainees under the Bush administration had resulted in some ex-prisoners returning to the battlefield.

“Two third of the detainees were released before I took office and ordered the closure of Guantanamo,” Obama said indignantly in a message that seemed aimed at Republican critics of his Gitmo plans.

Obama sought to portray the urgency of closing Guantanamo as driven not simply by his own desires, but by a growing number of court rulings in favor of legal challenges brought by prisoners.

“The courts have spoken. They have found there is no legitimate reason to hold 21 of the people confined at Guantanamo….I cannot ignore these rulings,” Obama said.

However, the legal situation is not as dire or urgent as the White House suggests. For example, only one judge has ordered the release of Guantanamo detainees into the U.S. That ruling, involving 17 Uighur men, was stayed and later overturned by a federal appeals court.

While about two dozen detainees have been ordered released by federal judges, at the moment those orders are largely unenforceable due to a D.C. Circuit ruling denying judges the authority to bring detainees to the U.S. Obama also suggested he is likely to seek to hold some of the Guantanamo prisoners without formal charge or trial. However, he said he will seek Congressional authorization for any such preventive detention regime.

[JimT]

Kinda hideos that Obama wants to close this place. It is where we "tortured" the terroists. They had is very very good there, and still do. How many terrorists have been beheaded, cut to pieces, hung from a bridge while at Gitmo? NONE! If we did to them what they do to us this war would have been over very quickly.