[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
GUANTANAMO BAY: THE REMAINING
DETAINEES
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MAY 24, 2016
__________
Serial No. 114-119
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah, Chairman
JOHN L. MICA, Florida ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland,
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio Ranking Minority Member
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
JIM JORDAN, Ohio ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
TIM WALBERG, Michigan Columbia
JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee JIM COOPER, Tennessee
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania
CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan
RON DeSANTIS, Florida TED LIEU, California
MICK MULVANEY, South Carolina BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey
KEN BUCK, Colorado STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands
MARK WALKER, North Carolina MARK DeSAULNIER, California
ROD BLUM, Iowa BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
JODY B. HICE, Georgia PETER WELCH, Vermont
STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico
EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia
GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin
WILL HURD, Texas
GARY J. PALMER, Alabama
Jennifer Hemingway, Staff Director
David Rapallo, Minority Staff Director
Mike Howell, Professional Staff Member
Willie Marx, Clerk
------
Subcommittee on National Security
RON DeSANTIS, Florida, Chairman
JOHN L. MICA, Florida STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts,
JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee Ranking Member
JODY B. HICE, Georgia ROBIN KELLY, Illinois
STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma, Vice Chair BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan
WILL HURD, Texas TED LIEU, California
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on May 24, 2016..................................... 1
WITNESSES
Mr. Thomas Joscelyn, Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of
Democracies
Oral Statement............................................... 4
Written Statement............................................ 7
Mr. Kirk Lippold, United States Navy (Retired) , Commanding
Officer of the USS Cole
Oral Statement............................................... 19
Written Statement............................................ 21
Mr. Jay Alan Liotta, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary for
Detainee Affairs, U.S. Department of Defense
Oral Statement............................................... 32
Written Statement............................................ 35
Mr. Alberto Mora, Senior Fellow, Carr Center for Human Rights
Policy, Harvard Kennedy School of Government
Oral Statement............................................... 41
Written Statement............................................ 43
GUANTANAMO BAY: THE REMAINING DETAINEES
----------
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on National Security,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:52 p.m., in
Room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ron DeSantis
[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives DeSantis, Mica, Duncan, Hice,
Hurd, Lynch, and Lieu.
Mr. DeSantis. The Subcommittee on National Security will
come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to
declare a recess at any time.
Since the first detainees arrived in 2002, the United
States' detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has housed
a total of 779 detainees. There are currently 80 detainees
remaining in Guantanamo Bay. The remaining detainee population
is generally composed of hardened and unrepentant terrorist.
The transfer of any of these detainees from Guantanamo Bay to
another country risks harming America's national security, and
we cannot be certain that a particular detainee will return to
terrorism. We can say that the chance of recidivism with these
particular detainees is high.
According to the most recent statistics from the Office of
the Director of National Intelligence, 204 out of the 676
released detainees are either confirmed to have reengaged or
are suspected of reengaging in terrorist activities. Many of
these detainees were thought to no longer represent a threat
when they were released, yet they nevertheless returned to
terrorism.
The Obama administration has acknowledged that Americans
have been killed at the hands of detainees who had previously
been released from Gitmo. When President Obama took office, he
inherited a largely high-risk population of 240 detainees. One
of the President's first actions in office was to issue an
executive order calling for the closure of the detention
facilities at Guantanamo Bay. The administration failed to
secure congressional support for closing Gitmo, so it has
attempted to empty out the facility by transferring detainees
that they had previously deemed too dangerous to transfer.
Once a detainee is earmarked for transfer, an interagency
team works with potential receiving countries to negotiate
security and humanitarian assurances regarding the detainee.
These agreements, though, are classified. It has not been made
clear whether the administration is tracking compliance with
these agreements or has just allowed risks to mount. The
administration has recently approved transfers of detainees to
countries with no track record of receiving detainees and with
limited intelligence capabilities, including Ghana and Senegal.
The administration no doubt is ideologically committed to
Guantanamo Bay. The President's conclusion that the detention
facility should be closed is based in part on his idea that the
facility is a recruiting tool for Islamic jihadists, but this
represents a misunderstanding of the nature of the terrorist
threats we face. Just last week in Mosul, radical Islamic
terrorists lowered 25 suspected spies into acid. They were
dissolved alive. These are not the type of people that will
abandon their jihad against America and our allies simply
because we close Guantanamo Bay.
In fact, in the most recent issue of Al-Qaeda's propaganda
machine, the jihadi author argued that the President's plan to
close Gitmo would have little effect on recruitment efforts. It
has been used as a pretext at times to recruit but it is not
the underlying cause of terrorist activity.
The only way America can stop radical Islamic terrorism is
to defeat radical Islamic terrorism. Appeasing terrorists or
worrying about their feelings simply will not work. The
administration's effort to close Guantanamo are not aimed as
securing the United States' national security interests but
instead at ideological victory.
Today, we will hear from a panel of experts who are able to
discuss the dangers inherent in transferring the remaining
detainees. They will also be able to speak to problems with
past transfers and to elaborate on why the administration
continues to repeat some of the mistakes of the past. I thank
each of them for joining us today.
Mr. DeSantis. And I also would like to recognize the
ranking member of the Subcommittee on National Security, the
gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Lynch, for his opening
statement.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you for
holding this hearing to examine the national security issues
related to the detention facility at the U.S. naval station at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
I would also like to thank today's witnesses for helping
this subcommittee with its work.
As reported by the Department of Defense, nearly 800
detainees have been held at Guantanamo since 2002, including a
peak of 684 detainees in June of 2003. Over the past 13 years,
the detainee population has been dramatically reduced by about
85 percent, or 691 inmates with more than 530 detainees
transferred by President Bush and 158 transferred by President
Obama to the custody of an estimated 60 different countries.
During my last visit to Guantanamo a couple of years ago,
we went out to camp 7 where Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others
are imprisoned. The number of detainees stood at about 174, but
today, there are only 80. In accordance with the Defense
Authorization Act for fiscal year 2016, the Defense Department
submitted a plan to Congress to resolve the disposition of
these remaining detainees and implement the President's intent
to close the facility as a national security imperative. It
provides that the administration will review detainee
eligibility for secure transfer to foreign government custody
or prosecution by a U.S. military commission.
For detainees who must be subject to continued detention,
the plan proposes relocation to an appropriate detention
facility within the continental United States. As such, this
plan will require explicit congressional approval.
In support of its plan, the Defense Department reports that
the cost of operating the detention mission at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, in fiscal year 2015 was about $445 million. It also
estimates that closure would lower annual operational costs by
about $140 million and $180 million. I would note that the
annual cost of operating Gitmo follows the significant
infrastructure investment that we have already made in the
facility, very, very nice court and very nice facilities there,
including $12 million for the courtroom known as the
Expeditionary Legal Complex. I am not sure we have used that
yet, though. I wish I had a court like that in my district to
be honest with you.
Now, much of the political and legislative debate over
Guantanamo continues to focus on the very broad question of
whether closing the facility would serve our national interest.
That is the question that we are trying to answer today. The
annual defense authorization bill again includes provisions
designed to prohibit closure. Now, I--and look, I totally
understand that, but I also think that Defense Department and
our wider responsibility should have the flexibility to figure
out what we are going to do with these folks under the rule of
law. And if it is prosecution, we ought to prosecute them.
And we need to reach a determination of that because I
think a country that relies on the rule of law and is widely
respected for our implementation under the rule of law, this is
sort of a backwater. It is an area where the rule of law has
not definitely been applied here. We are sort of in limbo so we
have got to figure out what to do.
National security demands dictate that we do not simply
remain at a political impasse over the closure. Rather, it is
imperative that we work on a bipartisan basis to examine the
threshold issue of whether each detainee poses a threat not
only to national security in the United States but also that of
our coalition partners in the global campaign to counter the
Islamic State and other terrorist organizations.
In addition, we must assess whether we can securely
transfer eligible detainees to foreign custody and mitigate
their potential to return as militants to the battlefield of
Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq or conduct terrorist operations
worldwide.
As reported by the director of the National Intelligence in
March of this year, approximately 17.5 percent of former Gitmo
detainees that have been transferred to other countries are
confirmed of reengaging in terrorist or insurgent activities.
That is 118 out of 676 former detainees who are directly
involved in terrorism or insurgency since the first Guantanamo
transfers in 2002. This includes 111 detainees transferred
during the Bush administration and seven detainees transferred
during the Obama administration. An estimated 12.7 percent of
all former Guantanamo detainees, 86 altogether, are suspected
of reengaging in terrorist or insurgent activities.
In order to strengthen the detainee vetting process, the
President established an interagency board in 2009 to evaluate
detainees on a rolling basis and determine their eligibility
for transfer to a third country, prosecution, or continued
detention. This is a marked improvement over previous vetting
conducted by a single agency, the Department of Defense.
However, continued evidence of terrorist reengagement
reiterates that we must further enhance our detainee review
process to assure that custody is handled in a secure and
responsible manner.
Mr. Chairman, I look forward to examining these other
issues with our witnesses, and I yield back the balance of my
time.
Mr. DeSantis. I thank the gentleman.
I will hold the record open for 5 legislative days for any
members who would like to submit a written statement.
I would also ask unanimous consent to introduce for the
record a hot-off-the-presses article about two dozen more Gitmo
detainees poised for release.
Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. DeSantis. I will now recognize our panel of witnesses.
I am pleased to welcome Mr. Tom Joscelyn, senior fellow at the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Commander Kirk Lippold,
U.S. Navy retired, former commanding officer of the USS Cole;
Mr. Jay Alan Liotta, former deputy assistant secretary for
Detainee Affairs at the U.S. Department of Defense; and Mr.
Alberto Mora, senior fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights
Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and former
general counsel of the United States Navy. Mr. Mora will be
testifying in his personal capacity.
Welcome to you all.
Pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses will be sworn in
before they testify. If you can please rise and raise your
right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. DeSantis. All witnesses answered in the affirmative.
Please be seated.
In order to allow time for discussion, please limit your
remarks to 5 minutes. Your entire written statement will be
made part of the record.
And with that, Mr. Joscelyn, you are recognized for 5
minutes.
WITNESS STATEMENTS
STATEMENT OF THOMAS JOSCELYN
Mr. Joscelyn. Well, Chairman DeSantis, Ranking Member
Lynch, and other members of the committee, thank you for having
me here today.
This is the 14th time I've testified before Congress. The
only other hearing that was highly contentious that I testified
at was dealing with Guantanamo so it is obviously a hot issue.
But I'd like to take a step back and look more in terms of
just the facts of who's remaining at Guantanamo within the four
walls of the Obama administration's own documents. So this is
based on what the Obama administration itself has said about
the remaining detainee population. And I am going to do that
very quickly through the lens of thinking about Guantanamo as a
risk-management problem because for years now U.S. officials
have been transferring detainees, and there is an idea--and
this goes before the Obama administration--where a number of
high-risk detainees during the Bush years were also
transferred. And it's not that they were thought to be
basically riskless or that they were--pose no recidivism
threat. It's that there are subjective judgments that are made
about the ability to mitigate the threat the detainees pose.
And this is a very tricky process, and I sympathize with
officials in the U.S. Government who are going through this
because I don't think that it's easy at all. But when we go
through this very quickly, you see that the majority of the
detainees who are left have been identified by the Obama
administration itself as in that high-risk population.
And so in 2009 President Obama's task force began reviewing
the detainee population and looked through 240 detainees. One
hundred and fifty-six of them were approved for transfer in one
way or another. Now, as the task force made clear, approved for
transfer did not mean that they were deemed innocent, nor did
it mean that they thought that there was no risk of recidivism.
But they thought they could be safely transferred subject to
appropriate security measures. In practice I think it's
difficult for some nations to put in place those appropriate
security measures.
Today, we have 80 detainees left, as both of you,
Congressman, have noted. Of those 80, 65 were deemed by
President Obama's task force to be too dangerous to transfer.
So we've gotten--basically, the administration has transferred
all but 15 of the detainees who were originally said that they
could transfer. You're down to 65 of the 80 are now--either
were slated for continued detention on laws of war, meaning the
authorization of the use of military force in 2001, or referred
for prosecution. So that's 65 of the 80. And on top of that we
have 11 Yemeni detainees who were placed in conditional
detention and four who were approved for transfer.
Now, that's the current state of the population, and that
means that 80--over 80 percent of the population was deemed by
Obama's task force to be in this do-not-transfer sort of--one
of two do-not-transfer categories.
Subsequently, the Obama administration set up this Periodic
Review Board process. This is looking at only the detainees so
far as I can tell who were placed in continued detention or
referred for prosecution. And based on publicly available
documents on the Periodic Review Board's Web site, 29
decisions--or 29 detainees have had a decision in their case so
far. Twenty-two of them have ultimately been approved for
transfer. So these are 29 detainees who, under the Obama's task
force, were deemed too dangerous to transfer.
Now, the Periodic Review Board has reviewed them, and in 22
cases they've actually been approved for transfer. In some of
these cases on the Periodic Review Board, the Periodic Review
Board itself determined at one point that these detainees were
too dangerous to transfer and then subsequently approved for
them to transfer anyway. So, for example, in 2014 a detainee
named Faiz Al Kandari was initially denied his transfer and
then later in the year was approved his transfer. And in the
initial decision the Periodic Review Board said that they
thought he was--had an extremist mindset and basically couldn't
be rehabilitated, and they didn't trust Kuwait to take him in.
By the end of the year, they said that they thought he was
willing to reconsider somewhat and that Kuwait could be trusted
to take him in.
All of this underscores a very simple fact as far as I'm
concerned. And because there's some risk of reporting in the
press, I think it's worth clarifying this here today. You'll
see the detainees--you'll see the phrase ``cleared for
release'' in press coverage. Cleared for release, as far as I
can tell, that phrase is never used by the Periodic Review
Boards, was never used by Obama's task force, was not used in
any of these proceedings as far as I can tell. The phrase they
used, different versions of it, was approved for transfer,
which means that their--in their minds security measures need
to be put in place in order to transfer these detainees safely.
Finally, just recently, the Periodic Review Board actually
ruled in favor of a detainee named Obaidullah--I'll give you
the spelling there--whose ISN number is 762. He was somebody
who was referred for prosecution originally by Obama's task
force, but then on May 19 a Periodic Review Board ruled that he
could be a transfer basically because he and his family said
that he could be reintegrated into society.
We are at a point now where I think that detainees who were
referred for prosecution by a task force, as you said,
Congressman Lynch, they should be tried if they were referred
for prosecution. We don't have a system in place right now
because the military commission system has been ground to a
halt and there's an unwillingness to use the Federal courts to
do this to try them. But in my mind there are dangerous
detainees who should be tried and can be tried, and that would
keep them from going back to the battlefield for sure.
Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Joscelyn follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman's time is expired.
The chair now recognizes Commander Lippold for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF KIRK LIPPOLD
Mr. Lippold. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Lynch, my name is
Commander Kirk Lippold, and I appreciate the opportunity to
testify before the subcommittee.
In my 26 years in the Navy I was a surface warfare officer
serving on five different ships, including guided missile
cruisers and destroyers to protect U.S. national security
interests across the globe.
I've experienced firsthand, particularly in my command of
USS Cole when it was attacked by Al Qaeda terrorists, the
devastating effects of terrorism. In that attack, the United
States had failed to realize we were in an undeclared state of
war with Al Qaeda. Unfortunately, it took the 9/11 attacks 11
months later to finally put the Department of Defense on a war
footing. That war effort continues today, and rather than
abating and slowing, it is picking up in pace and in lethality
on an unprecedented scale.
Following my command of USS Cole, I was assigned to the
Joint Chiefs of Staff and the director for Strategic Plans and
Policy. My office was tasked to develop the policies on how the
U.S. military would conduct post-9/11 detainee operations.
Today, the failure to use Guantanamo Bay has made the U.S.
less safe and more vulnerable since we no longer have a
facility with its unique capabilities to leverage the
intelligence advantage that our nation could possess with its
use. Keeping Guantanamo Bay open is more important now than
ever before in the war effort.
Guantanamo Bay was chosen as the best place for long-term
detention for a host of legal operational and logistics
reasons, that there was much more viable strategic
consideration. It was designed to be an intelligence center for
excellence in the war on terror. If the U.S. can get terrorists
off the battlefield and into Guantanamo Bay, we can be
presented with an unprecedented opportunity to gain a
comprehensive understanding of how Al Qaeda recruits, trains,
equips, finances, and conducts these operations. Once we
understand how they do that, then and only then can we truly
target them for defeat.
Today, many people demand that the detention facility be
closed, and some of the more socially popular reasons include
it's a recruiting tool, it's too costly, it's a human rights
embarrassment, the detainees have a right to a trial. All these
reasons are specious and fail to hold up to the facts when
people take time to understand the true nature of the facility.
Guantanamo Bay must become the crown jewel for the United
States in the intelligence effort to defeat transnational
terrorist groups. It is not a recruiting tool. Correlation is
not causation. Just because Gitmo is cited in terrorist
literature and propaganda, it does not prove it is why recruits
join terrorist organizations any more than the movie spurred
the Benghazi attacks. No accurate cost calculations exist to
justify closing Guantanamo Bay.
While everyone focuses on the facility to house them, all
the second- and third-order effects on the local communities,
not to mention the constitutional issues, have ever been
addressed.
The U.S. Navy got out of the prison ship business in the
1700s. Let's not give that sad period in our history new life.
Taking a naval warship worth an estimated $2 billion, sending
it on a short disruptive deployment to serve as a logistics
platform and prison ship is a waste of a strategic asset when
the Nation already has a state-of-the-art facility that can
serve the same purpose, Guantanamo Bay.
As stipulated under the Geneva conventions and the law of
armed conflict, the U.S. has a right under international law to
detain combatants captured on the battlefield until the end of
the conflict. Al Qaeda and Taliban started this war, not the
United States, and they continue to wage that war on us today.
Also, under the law of armed conflict and the conventions,
there is no requirement for a trial or legal proceeding to
assess the guilt or innocence of unlawful enemy combatants
engaged in armed conflict against the United States. The only
requirement is a periodic review, which the U.S. still does, to
confirm the circumstances of their capture. Still unclassified
predictions estimate that about 30 percent of the detainees
released from Guantanamo Bay have returned to the fight in one
form or another. Classified estimates put that number even
higher.
While it's been almost 15 years since 9/11, the United
States is still a nation out war. No detainee that is confirmed
to be an unlawful enemy combatant who is engaged in armed
conflict against the United States should be released from our
custody. They should be held in indefinite detention under the
law of armed conflict or if they meet the trial--criteria for a
trial by military commission, charge them, try them, convict
them for their crimes, and hold them accountable.
In conclusion, the United States Government has a moral
responsibility and--to the American people and the world to
ensure that not one more American or any citizen from any
nation dies at the hands of a terrorist released from
Guantanamo Bay. Keeping the detention facility open is in the
best interest of the United States and the American people. The
threat of ongoing terrorist operations against the United
States militates that as a nation we should continue using the
facilities that have already been built there and expand their
use to ensure that another terrorist attack is not carried out
against the United States.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Lippold follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman's time is expired.
The chair now recognizes Mr. Liotta for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF JAY ALAN LIOTTA
Mr. Liotta. Chairman DeSantis, Ranking Member Lynch, and
members of the committee, I would like to thank you for the
opportunity to be with you here today.
From February 2004 until January 2015 when I retired after
more than 32 years of government service, I served as the
ranking career civilian officer overseeing the Office of
Detainee Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. I
was there when Secretary Rumsfeld created the office in the
aftermath of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. I am proud to say
that over the subsequent 11 years I helped play an instrumental
role working with seven different deputy assistant secretaries
of defense during both the Bush and Obama administrations to
create a sound, credible, and transparent detention policy that
now many countries across the globe seek to emulate.
Today, I am retired from government service and do not
represent the views of the Department of Defense. My statements
here today are solely my own personal views. With this in mind,
I would like to focus on the processes used to review the
threat those in detention still pose and whether our government
should continue to negotiate the transfer of those whose
potential threat can be mitigated safely by other countries.
Secretary Rumsfeld made it clear during his tenure that
while we would detain those who sought to harm our national
interests, we were not, nor should we be, the world's jailer.
During his stewardship of the Department and that of every
subsequent Secretary of Defense, the Department sought to
ensure a process to review the continuing level of threat posed
by each detainee.
During the Bush administration, DOD relied on the
Administrative Review Board process chaired by the Deputy
Secretary of Defense to review all of the available information
to--at DOD's hands on each detainee to assess their level of
threat. If a detainee was determined to no longer be a threat,
he was released. And during the first ARB process, 14 detainees
were approved for release with no restrictions against them.
More often, the deputy secretary used the ARB process to
approve the transfer of individuals who were believed to
continue to represent some level of threat but a level that can
be constrained through negotiated security assurances with the
receiving country. These assurances included the restriction of
movement from within or outside of the country, a continued
monitoring of the individual, and where applicable, prosecution
under local laws.
During the Bush administration, 214 detainees were
transferred with such restrictions during the ARB process. When
President Obama assumed office in 2009, he ordered the Justice
Department to spearhead an executive review of all information
available on each detainee. This review assessed all of the
information available to the ARBs, as well as a considerable
amount of highly classified intelligence that had not been part
of the ARB review.
As a result, the executive task force determined that 126
detainees were approved for transfer subject to appropriate
security assurances; 44 were referred for review as prosecution
candidates; 30 Yemeni detainees were approved for conditional
detention, meaning that they could be transferred if the
security situation in Yemen improved or an appropriate
rehabilitation or third country resettlement option became
available; and 48 detainees were approved for continued
detention.
Following the task force review, there began an aggressive
move to transfer the 126 detainees recommended for transfer.
Between 2010 and 2013, I worked successfully with Ambassador
Dan Fried from the State Department to transfer 87 detainees to
29 countries and to the U.S. for Federal prosecution.
Although we continue to explore efforts made during the
Bush administration to provide a safer security environment in
Yemen, the attempt by a terrorist to bring down an airplane
bound for Detroit resulted in President Obama's announcement of
a moratorium on any transfers to Yemen.
In October 2013 in an effort to accelerate transfers,
President Obama instructed the Defense and State Departments to
appoint special envoys exclusively dedicated to the mission of
transferring detainees. Since both DOD and the State envoys
have been in place, 84 detainees have been transferred with
security assurances to 20 countries.
By this time, however, it was clear that the information
used by the task force in 2009 to assess the potential threat
of a detainee eligible for transfer was increasingly stale. So
in November 2013 the Defense Department conducted the first
Periodic Review Board hearing to determine whether a detainee
previously determined as not eligible for transfer was still a
significant threat against the United States and its allies.
Like the executive order task force, the PRB consisted of
six voting members, one each from the Office of the Secretary
of Defense; the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Department of State,
Homeland Security, Justice; and from the Office of the Director
of National Intelligence.
Although the PRBs are administrative--a military
administrative procedure and not a judicial or a penal process,
the detainees can opt to be represented by both military
representatives and legal counsel. In addition, the detainee is
afforded the opportunity to address the board and directly
answer their questions, which makes the process more like a
parole board review in the American penal system.
Since the first PRB, there have been 43 hearings for 39
detainees. Of these 43 hearings, 11 detainees were determined
to remain in continued detention, 21 had their status changed
to transfer, and 11 decisions are still pending. Of those whose
status was changed to transfer, nine have since been the
transferred with security assurances, and the remaining 12 are
at Gitmo.
Finally, allow me to address the issue of detainees who
have returned to the fight since their release from--their
transfer from Gitmo. The intelligence community assessed in its
most recent unclassified report that 204 of the 606 former
Guantanamo detainees are suspected or confirmed to have
returned to the fight. This represents about 30 percent of the
detainees transferred. Moreover, the intelligence community
notes that transfers to countries with ongoing conflicts in
internal stability, as well as recruitment by insurgent
terrorist organizations, poses problems with transfers.
No one wants to see a detainee who is transferred return to
the fight. The Congress has sought, through varying degrees of
legislation, to try and prevent detainees from reengaging once
transferred, but the reality is the only way to prevent a
detainee's return to the fight is to never transfer them from
Gitmo. But as the PRBs continue to show, that simply is not a
feasible option for many of the detainees who indeed no longer
wish to pursue terrorist objectives. And as Secretary Rumsfeld
once warned, it would turn us into the world's jailer.
Thank you very much for my time.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Liotta follows:]
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Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman's time is expired.
The chair now recognizes Mr. Mora for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF ALBERTO MORA
Mr. Mora. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Lynch, and members
of the subcommittee, I want to thank you for inviting me here
today to participate in this important hearing. I will focus my
brief comments on the impact that the closure of Guantanamo
would have on the United States national security interests.
In my capacity as Navy general counsel in the years after
9/11, I was deeply involved in the legal and policy issues
related to the detention, interrogation, and status review of
detainees held at Guantanamo. Based on my experience and
judgment, I believe that closing Guantanamo would significantly
enhance U.S. national security.
And there are many others who share this view. In addition
to Presidents Bush and Obama, five former and current
Secretaries of Defense and five chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff have supported closing Guantanamo, as have seven former
Secretaries of State across both Republican and Democratic
administrations.
Earlier this year, 36 retired generals and admirals,
including General Charles Krulak, the former commandant of the
Marine Corps; and Major General Michael Lehnert, the commander
in charge of setting up the detention facility, wrote to
Congress urging that it help close Guantanamo.
These are the five reasons to close Guantanamo: first,
because there's no longer any unique legal reason to use the
facility. As we know, Guantanamo is no longer outside the
jurisdiction of the U.S. Federal courts, and this was a
principal reason for its selection in the first place. Thus,
there is no longer any significant legal advantage to holding
detainees in Guantanamo as opposed to holding them in Federal
detention facilities in the United States.
Second, because Guantanamo simply costs too much.
Guantanamo costs the U.S. taxpayer $445 million a year or about
$5.56 million per detainee annually compared to Federal
facilities that incarcerate prisoners at a maximum cost of
about $78,000 per prisoner per year. This is waste in its
purest form.
Third, because Guantanamo requires and constitutes a
wasteful use of scarce military personnel. Currently, there are
approximately 1,200 soldiers guarding a mere 80 detainees in
Guantanamo. Given that this function could easily be
centralized, this represents a highly wasteful use of scarce
military personnel.
Fourth, because Guantanamo does not provide any unique
security function that is not already being provided by the
Federal prison system. Stateside detention facilities are
currently holding at least 443 convicted terrorists in
facilities located across 21 U.S. States, including a number of
high-level Al-Qaeda plotters and even one former Guantanamo
detainee. There is no evidence that holding these men within
the United States has presented any danger to local
communities. This evidence--there is evidence, however, that
Guantanamo is therefore not uniquely secure.
And fifth and most important, because the foreign policy
national security costs of maintaining Guantanamo as a
detention facility are too high and outweigh the benefit that
it provides.
Fairly or unfairly, Guantanamo today is regarded by
millions around the world as a symbol of American injustice and
cruelty. Because of this, Guantanamo has contributed to a loss
of American lives overseas. Let me explain how. A recently
discovered 2006 U.S. diplomatic cable from our embassy in
Kuwait reported on a meeting of senior U.S. military
intelligence and diplomatic officials to review our
counterterrorism strategy in Iraq, including the causes for
terrorist inflows in theory. I should mention that Senator--
rather general Stanley McChrystal was present and participated
in that meeting.
The cable states, and I quote, ``The primary motivator for
most terrorist and foreign fighters, as reported by U.S.
military intelligence, remains perceived U.S. abuses of and
lack of due process for detainees at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo
Bay, making this issue a key driver of terrorist and foreign
fighters flows and a key element undermining international
confidence in the United States' ability to conduct an
effective war on terrorism that remains true to American
values.''
Although that cable was written in 2006, in 2013 the
director of National Intelligence stated that ``Guantanamo
continues to serve as a propaganda tool in service of Al-
Qaeda's false narratives and justifications for waging global
jihad against the United States.''
By continuing to serve as a symbol of American injustice,
Guantanamo contributes to anti-Americanism, diminishes public
support for U.S. policies in allied nations, contributes to and
continues to be used by dictators in repressive regimes to
justify their own abuse of detention policies.
And concluding, Guantanamo is too expensive, too
inefficient, and too wasteful of scarce military resources. It
provides no additional security to what is routinely provided
every single day by Federal prisons in the United States to
terrorists as dangerous as any in Guantanamo and critically, it
provides ammunition to America's enemies to mischaracterize our
values, our policies, and our objectives in the war on terror.
Mr. Chairman, Guantanamo is not an asset, it's a liability.
I thank the committee again and look forward to answering your
questions.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Mora follows:]
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Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman's time is expired. The chair
now recognizes himself for 5 minutes.
Commander, what role did the facility at Gitmo play in
sparking the terrorists to attack the USS Cole?
Mr. Lippold. The facility did not exist back then. It
played no role.
Mr. DeSantis. And the facility also did not exist in the
embassy bombings in '98, correct?
Mr. Lippold. It didn't exist for the embassy bombings or
the ----
Mr. DeSantis. Or the WTC ----
Mr. Lippold. It did not exist ----
Mr. DeSantis.--in '93, and of course it did not exist for
the 9/11 2001 attacks, correct?
Mr. Lippold. That's correct, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. DeSantis. Now, the administration recently released
Mashur Abdallah Muqbil Ahmed al Sabri, who is connected to the
Cole bombing. Do you think that that release was in the
national security interests of our country?
Mr. Lippold. Absolutely not. One of the biggest problems
with that release is that he was being held under the law of
armed conflict. There was not enough evidence, but he was
directly tied to the attack on USS Cole and was nonetheless
released because the bar was lowered yet again to allow another
detainee to go free.
Mr. DeSantis. Now, have you spoken to any of the families
of those who had family members killed or injured in the Cole
bombing about this?
Mr. Lippold. I stay in touch with them constantly, and they
were devastated to know that a person who is connected to the
attack on USS Cole that killed 17 sailors, including their
loved ones and their friends as far as my crew is concerned,
was being released by the Obama administration.
Mr. DeSantis. And ----
Mr. Lippold. They felt it was unfair and it blindsided
them, despite the President's promise at a meeting on February
6, 2009, where he said he would keep the families informed as
to what he was going to do with the facility and the detainees,
and he has failed to live up to that promise.
Mr. DeSantis. So there was no consultation at all?
Mr. Lippold. Zero.
Mr. DeSantis. Now, do you believe it is likely that he will
reengage in terrorism, al Sabri?
Mr. Lippold. I think there's a good chance. It certainly
proves that he can do it. And while he does have family and he
was Yemen background but transferred to Saudi Arabia, there is
a possibility he will return. We are hoping that the family
will keep him stable. But again, it is the influence that goes
on. It is no different than the recidivism rate, much, much
higher than you see with prisons. It's who you associate with.
There are still people in Saudi Arabia who have conformed to
the Wahhabi lifestyle who believe in that forum. They believe
in jihad, and if he falls into that environment again, I
believe he will return to the battlefield.
Mr. DeSantis. Yes, Mr. Mora, putting detainees into
American prisons, wouldn't that run the risk of American
prisoners being radicalized?
Mr. Mora. Mr. Chairman, we already have 443 terrorists in
American prisons. I think adding a few more is not going to
appreciably change the risk.
Mr. DeSantis. So you don't think it will add to the risk at
all?
Mr. Mora. I think only marginally.
Mr. DeSantis. Well, I think there is a problem with radical
Islam in some of these prisons. I don't want to be adding to
it.
Let me ask you, Mr. Joscelyn. The estimate from National
Intelligence was 30 percent of transferred detainees are either
suspected or have been confirmed of reengaging in terrorism. Do
you quibble with those numbers?
Mr. Joscelyn. The reason I would quibble with it a little
bit is I don't use the engagement--reengagement percentage. And
the reason is because they basically--there's a lot of unknown
in the denominator, so it's basically the confirmed and
suspected recidivists are the numerator. That assumes that the
denominator is everybody who's been transferred, but yet there
are people who've been transfer we don't know what they're
doing.
Mr. DeSantis. Exactly. Now, DOD has admitted that Americans
have died because of released detainees. Do you know how many
Americans have died as a result of detainees being released
from Gitmo?
Mr. Joscelyn. Congressman, I don't know the precise number.
I know only anecdotal evidence that actually I testified
previously about a former Gitmo detainee named Mullah Zakir who
became the Taliban's top military commander. He was transferred
by the Bush administration to Afghanistan and promptly released
him. We have firm evidence and there's firm reporting that he
and his men systematically hunted down U.S. marines in
Afghanistan, and he led the opposition to President Obama's
surge in Afghanistan. This was a uniquely lethal individual,
and it's actually guys like him that I'm most worried about
being transferred today.
Mr. DeSantis. And can you discuss, of the current detainee
population, who specifically are very high risk and that would
represent a danger to our national security if released?
Mr. Joscelyn. Well, we have--obviously, you have the 9/11
plotters. There are a few of them and some other guys who were
involved in these anti-Western plots. Very quickly, I doubt--I
hope that those guys won't be transferred. Those are the
clearest cases. My concern is that there's a layer underneath
them, guys like I mentioned previously in my testimony who are,
as far as our assessments go, pretty committed ideologues and
who can do damage themselves.
Mr. DeSantis. Great. I think that, you know, what we are
trying to figure out, we know the administration has
acknowledged that Americans have been killed as a result of
some of these detainees who have been released. I wish the
conflict was over because then we just figure out, but not only
is the conflict not over, to me the Islamists are on the march.
If you look at what they are doing in the Middle East, if you
look at what they are doing in North Africa, if you look at
what they are doing in Europe now with different cells, this is
a problem that I think is more acute than it was even before 9/
11, and I think putting these guys back into circulation I
think it is bad for the security but it is also--it is a
morale-killer if you have somebody who was involved with the
Cole go back and go back to terrorism. You know, you are just
like, geez, what are we doing?
Well, my time is up. I recognize the gentleman from
Massachusetts, Mr. Lynch, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you. Just to be clear, of the six that
were originally--at the peak there were about 686 detainees,
but by the time President Obama took office, it looks like 440
of them had already been released. Is that correct, Mr.
Joscelyn?
Mr. Joscelyn. Seven hundred and seventy-nine detainees as
far as I'm aware have been held there at one time or another.
By January 2009 the population was down to 240.
Mr. Lynch. Okay. So, yes. So more than 400 were released by
President Bush. Any indication of any of these folks that were
released by President Bush killing Americans?
Mr. Joscelyn. I would say the majority--overwhelming
majority of known and suspected recidivists at this point come
from the Bush administration transfers and releases. Some of
these guys included leaders in Al-Qaeda Arabian Peninsula,
which has of course targeted the U.S. I don't think they've
actually killed in the U.S., but that doesn't mean the--or
Americans, but that doesn't mean the threat to the U.S. isn't
there. And of course Mullah Zakir was somebody who was
transferred during the Bush years and it did come back to haunt
us.
Mr. Lynch. Okay. Mr. Mora, thank you. And thank you all for
your testimony. I really appreciate you coming forward here.
Ironically--you know, I have been to Gitmo. I have actually
gone into the cells and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, I have been
through that facility. As I said in my opening statement, I
wish that some of my prisons in the United States were as nice
as what we got going on there at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, even
though people--now, if you are wrongly detained, I don't care
how nice the jail is; it is still in jail and you are wrongly
imprisoned.
But, you know, I mean some of these cells, they are a lot
bigger. I know in Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's case he has got a
front room and then he has got a back room with a screen on the
back to the outdoors where actually there is actually sun that
enters into the back of his cell. He has got a pretty nice
arrangement there, got an arrow on the floor that points to his
Mecca so he can pray. He has got, you know, videos and all that
stuff. And yet you have got this perception out there of
American injustice for us the way we are treating these
detainees in Guantanamo.
You know, I go to the prisons in my district and they are
very harsh compared to what the inmates and detainees are
looking at as Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And then I visit the
prisons--I have gone into the prisons in Iraq, and you want to
talk about grim. It just defies reality that people think, you
know, that this is a recruiting tool for--I know what the
perceived injustice is, but the reality of the conditions, the
way we are treating our prisoners, our detainees compared to
the way a lot of those folks are being treated in places like
Yemen, like Iraq, some places in Egypt, you hear a lot of that
among former prisoners in prisons in those countries, it
defies--I think the perception is very far from reality in
terms of, you know, what we are doing and what we are trying to
do as opposed to what people are condemning us for.
Mr. Liotta, you mentioned that in your job you helped
reassigned I think you said detainees to 29 different
countries.
Mr. Liotta. Correct.
Mr. Lynch. Yes. Okay. And I notice overall of all these--we
have reassigned to detainees to 60 different countries. Are any
of the countries that you have been involved with in
reassigning detainees to, are any of them reliable, let's say,
in terms of taking custody of these detainees, keeping them in
secure environments, not letting them get back to the
battlefield, are any of the countries that we have reassigned
to, have they been reliable partners in terms of, you know,
securing these people, not abusing them, but keeping them in
prison and keeping these people off the battlefield, any of
these countries at all?
Mr. Liotta. Yes, sir. And to be clear, all of the transfers
that I was involved in involved transfers with security
assurances, that the country would display and we could assess
their capability and their willingness, which is different than
capability, to prevent a detainee from reengaging in the fight.
And my job was to go and negotiate with these countries and
then come back and talk--or report to the deputy secretary of
Defense or the Secretary of Defense and explain to them what
those capabilities and those willingnesses were and was the
country able to do that. And ----
Mr. Lynch. Would you give any of these countries high marks
and would you give any of them low marks, failing grades?
Mr. Liotta. It runs the entire spectrum, you're right.
Mr. Lynch. Do you want to name any of the countries that
have done a good job?
Mr. Liotta. Well, I think from my personal perspective I
think a country that's done a very good job is Saudi Arabia.
They have an aggressive program that's designed to de-
radicalize not only Guantanamo detainees that are returned to
Saudi Arabia, but also their own citizens in domestic jihad
that use attacks. They are under assault every day by Al-Qaeda
in the Arabian Peninsula, and they have an aggressive effort to
try to make sure that they can de-radicalize or if they can't
de-radicalize, that they can imprison and keep from the
battlefield detainees that would cause harm to them or to us or
to our allies.
Mr. Lynch. Let me just ask you the opposite side of the
coin. Anybody that you would not recommend us, you know,
relocating or redeploying some of these detainees? Anybody that
you--any country have seen through your experience immediately
release people and let them go back to the battlefield?
Mr. Liotta. I would not make recommendations to the
Secretary or the deputy secretary if I felt that there was a
possibility that that was going to happen, that a country would
not live up to its expectations.
Mr. Lynch. No, no, I am not saying anybody you reassigned,
but from your experience of seeing detainees sent to a foreign
country and then having them go to the battlefield, are there
any countries that you think are, you know, too permissive in
releasing those people who are committed to foreign custody?
Mr. Liotta. Ranking Member Lynch, I'd have to think about
that. I'm not--can't say off ----
Mr. Lynch. Okay. That is ----
Mr. Liotta.--the top of my head.
Mr. Lynch.--fair enough. No. All right. I am over my time.
I yield back.
Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman's time is expired, but I
appreciate your point about, you know, going to Gitmo, when I
was in the Navy I was there for a time and it is a very
professionally run facility. Anybody in this room would rather
spend a night there than in like the Fallujah jail or something
like this. I mean, it is just night and day.
And the people that are guarding that facility are under an
awful lot of pressure because those detainees are very hostile
to them, and they know that if they do anything that they are
all of a sudden going to be subject to--so it is a very
stressful environment for our uniformed personnel who are
there.
The chair now recognizes Mr. Duncan for 5 minutes.
Mr. Duncan. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Do want to go first? You can go first if you want to.
Mr. DeSantis. Okay. The chair now recognizes Mr. Mica for 5
minutes.
Mr. Mica. Sorry. Mr. Mora, you testified that Guantanamo,
at least our policy there, constitute cruelty?
Mr. Mora. No, sir. It's perceived as having been a place
where cruelty was applied to some of the detainees.
Mr. Mica. Is there cruelty taking place there?
Mr. Mora. Not now, sir.
Mr. Mica. Okay. And you have been there?
Mr. Mora. Yes, sir.
Mr. Mica. I was there and the chairman also mentioned where
would you rather spend a night. I saw the treatment of the
detainees, and I can assure you that my veterans, my seniors,
many of my people who have worked very hard, none of those
folks had the--I have many of them in my district who do not
have the accommodations, the medical care, the recreational
facilities that we are affording those individuals. I saw no
cruelty there.
In fact, the press asked me what I thought when I left, and
I think it is a quote my kids put on the refrigerator. Their
dad said--my response was ``it is too good for the bastards.''
And I believe that.
Now, you also talked about due process. Okay. Commander
Lippold, I guess we lost around 3,000 people of various
nationalities in 9/11. Are you aware of due process that was
extended to those individuals who were mass murdered, sir?
Mr. Lippold. No, sir.
Mr. Mica. And then troops killed in Afghanistan, I have
2,172. Some of those detainees killed and slaughtered our
troops, is that not correct?
Mr. Lippold. That is correct.
Mr. Mica. Okay. And were they extended due process, any of
the troops, before they slaughtered them?
Mr. Lippold. Well, a due process proceeding actually does
not apply when you're engaged in law of armed conflict, but
they were not engaged in a manner where they deserved Geneva
Convention protections.
Mr. Mica. These were not part of any sovereign state. They
are enemy combatants without a country not having normal status
under the law. Mr. Mora said there is no legal reason for their
detention, that we could--he questioned the basis on which we
are detaining these people. Do you agree with that?
Mr. Lippold. I do not. We have a right under international
law and the Geneva Convention to detain these combatants for
the duration of the conflict.
Mr. Mica. And, let's see. You mentioned the 17 soldiers on
the USS Cole. They were all given due process before they were
slaughtered, too, weren't they?
Mr. Lippold. No.
Mr. Mica. Okay. Well, again, I am very concerned about what
has been said here today. And then the number of detainees that
have been released, I guess the non-classified is about 30
percent have returned over 200 to re-slaughter Americans, re-
slaughter innocent people. Mr. Joscelyn, Mr. Lippold, is that
an accurate assessment?
Mr. Joscelyn. It's accurate, 204 confirmed and suspected
recidivists.
Mr. Mica. So even if we let the percentage that Mr. Mora
wants to again relocate, we risk the possibility or if they
release them--these are the hardest core of the hardest core
killers that I guess an independent panel has said these are
the baddest of the bad, is that correct?
Mr. Joscelyn. I don't think there's any dispute over the
majority of the detainees that are left, how much of a risk
they pose.
Mr. Lippold. And one of my concerns is for both the Bush
and Obama administrations is we have released people when we
are in a state of war that should have been detained because
they posed a risk. And once we detected there was a recidivism
rate at all, any transfers out of Guantanamo Bay at that point
should have stopped. While Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld may
have said we don't want to be the world's jailer, that's
putting it in a legal context like it's some criminal action
backed by 100,000 military. It's not. We're at war.
Mr. Mica. And there are some places--actually, I think I
helped get somebody--maybe it was the Khobar Towers murderers
back to Saudi Arabia. I thought it was fitting to get them back
there because they behead them, and I thought that that was
adequate due process for those that slaughtered one of the high
school students who I spoke at his graduation and then I spoke
at his funeral. He was slaughtered.
And I stood with another Member of Congress at Khobar
Towers, and I will never forget walking through there seeing
the images of our soldiers, their bodies had been blasted
against the walls, a bloody imprint was there, and then walking
down the hallways as I saw the blood trail of people trying to
get out of the building, our soldiers who they slaughtered,
they didn't have due process.
Sorry, Mr. Mora. I yield back.
Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman yields back. Seeing nobody on
the Democratic side, the chair will now recognize Mr. Duncan
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Duncan. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to read a 1-minute speech that I gave on the Floor
on November 20, 2013, 2-1/2 years ago. Yesterday, the
Washington Times reported that the U.S. is now spending
millions on life skills and art seminars for prisoners at
Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The paper said a multimillion-dollar
Federal contract is teaching Gitmo detainees basic landscaping,
calligraphy, and Microsoft PowerPoint, among other seminars, in
addition to library services and special food, and Mr. Mica
mentioned recreation facilities.
Last July, the Comptroller of the Defense Department
reported that the cost of keeping Guantanamo prison open during
2013 would be an astounding $454 million for just 164
prisoners. This comes out to roughly $2.7 million per year for
each one of these detainees held in the prison camp. This
compares to $72,000 per year per prisoner in Federal high-
security prisons, super max prisons, and $34,000 in an average
Federal prison. Because the Federal Government is so wasteful
and inefficient, States are housing State prisoners for much
less than that.
The taxpayers of this nation should not be forced to spend
$454 million to give the good life to former terrorists. They
should be sent to the most unpleasant prison in the U.S., but
this and other abuses of U.S. taxpayers will continue until we
drastically downsize the Federal Government and greatly
decrease its funding.
Now, we have a report that says this: At the beginning of
2015 the prison held 122 detainees; at the end of 2015 it held
107 detainees. Now, we hear we are down to 80. And this report
says over the course of 2015 the absolute minimum cost ranged
between $3.7 million and $4.2 million per year for each
detainee.
I just had 43 students and teachers from Washburn High
School, a very rural school in east Tennessee, and I told them
I was coming to this hearing and how much it was costing per
prisoner, and one of the young high school students says can I
get in?
I think it is really sad that we are spending this much
money per prisoner when we could put them in a super max prison
for a tiny fraction of what we are spending. I think it is
ridiculous, and I think any true fiscal conservatives should be
very, very upset about this. We need to drastically reduce the
staff that is down there and come up with some other thing for
these prisoners because they don't deserve the good life that
we are giving those prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
I yield back.
Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman yields back.
The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas for 5
minutes.
Mr. Hurd. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Commander Lippold, I want to thank you for your service. I
was in the CIA for a decade. I started in October of 2000. I
was on the Yemen account right before what happened with the
Cole and spent some time in Arabia Felix on this issue. And
thank you for what you have always done.
Mr. Lippold. Thanks.
Mr. Hurd. My first question is a simple question to Mr.
Joscelyn. It is a related question about battlefield
intelligence that we are gaining. You know, we are in active
conflicts all over the world, and, you know, how are we, you
know, taking prisoners and having folks that you get on the
battlefield and collecting battlefield intelligence is critical
in protecting our forces. How is that happening now?
Mr. Joscelyn. As far as I can tell, it is an ad hoc process
at best that a lot of battlefield intelligence is not being
collected because we do not have a stable detention and
interrogation program in place. Every expert I talked to from
your corner of the world or previous corner of the world and
elsewhere will tell you the value of human intelligence in
terms of discerning what's actually going on and what our
enemies are thinking, and I am concerned that we are not
collecting enough of that intelligence currently.
Mr. Hurd. Commander, do you have any opinion, sir?
Mr. Lippold. I would agree absolutely on that point. The
problem you have is when you don't use a place like Guantanamo
Bay, we are--where we are bringing truly the high level and the
most dangerous terrorists that we want to capture. Today, we
are taking the morally lazy way and we're using drone strikes.
Every drone strike that we use is taking out a potential
intelligence asset that perhaps we should go after and capture
because they truly are the ones that are going to tell us how
the organization operates, how they conduct those operations
because it's only operationally when you understand how your
enemy works that you can target them, you can disrupt them, and
then eventually defeat them. And to not do that and to not
leverage that intelligence is a disservice to the American
people when we are a nation at war.
Mr. Hurd. I appreciate that, Commander.
Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time back to you.
Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman yields back.
Is there anybody here--if we close Guantanamo tomorrow and
remove the detainees, either release them to other countries or
in the United States, is there anybody here that things that
that would cause a drop in terrorist activity around the world?
Mr. Joscelyn?
Mr. Joscelyn. Absolutely not.
Mr. DeSantis. Commander?
Mr. Lippold. No, sir.
Mr. DeSantis. Mr. Liotta?
Mr. Liotta. I'm not sure there'd be enough evidence to be
able to take a hypothetical question like that, Mr. Chairman,
to be able to make a real judgment, so I'd have to defer at
this time.
Mr. DeSantis. Okay. Mr. Mora?
Mr. Mora. Sir, I think it would blunt the jihadist message
about American injustice, and I think it would--it may--it
can't be guaranteed but I think it would reduce the appeal of
the jihadist message to undecided populations in the Middle
East and elsewhere.
Also I should say it would comfort our allies in Europe who
see Guantanamo as a fundamentally unjust detention facility.
Mr. DeSantis. So here with--how it would affect recruiting,
I mean here is why I have been skeptical that it would make it
more difficult for them to recruit. I mean, take the 9/11
hijackers, 15 of them from Saudi Arabia, in Saudi Arabia, if a
woman gets raped, she can end up getting stoned, and they're
out there stoning a woman to death and do you think like when
they are doing that they are like, oh, man, Guantanamo is just
such a human rights violation? I mean, they are living in these
areas where they are constantly abusing people's human rights,
and so that is why I just don't think it is credible that it
would change their ability to recruit, even though I know some
people honestly feel that it would.
I am going to recognize Mr. Lynch for 5 minutes.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And let me drill down
on that a little bit more. I have to say that there are some
people who I respect very, very much in the military that have,
you know, decidedly strong opinions on this. One of them is our
former national security advisor General Jim Jones, and I have
got a quote here from him.
He said America--and this is all--you know, the Petraeus
approach of, you know, winning these hearts and minds and
General, you know, trying to get the Sunni awakening going,
again, with a couple Sunni shakes there about a month ago in
Anbar Province. And I think what Jim Jones explained, he said,
``America's greatest attribute in garnering support for our
national security initiatives is our leadership and fidelity to
our values and the principle of justice.'' He went on to say,
``it is my firm conviction that maintaining the facility at
Guantanamo Bay indefinitely will have a lasting and deleterious
impact on our standing in the world.''
Another gentleman who I respect greatly, General Martin
Dempsey, he said that Guantanamo ``does create a psychological
scar on our national values. Whether it should or not, it
does.''
And lastly, General Colin Powell, former Secretary of State
under President Bush, has also remarked that ``Guantanamo has
cost us a lot over the years in terms of our standing in the
world and the way in which despots have hidden behind what we
have done at Guantanamo.'' So, you know, those are all men that
I respect very much, and they are in the fight and they have
been for a long time.
And, Mr. Mora, how is maintaining the detention facility at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, contrary to our basic values as
Americans? Can you speak to that?
Mr. Mora. Mr. Ranking Member, if you look at political and
human rights commentary all around the world, it's almost in
every European country, every NATO country, Canada, Australia,
New Zealand, Guantanamo is identified as an injustice.
I'll point you to one source. The very respected Inter-
American Commission of Human Rights last year issued a volume
entitled ``Closing Guantanamo.'' And in the first sentence of
the first paragraph the executive summary it talks about the
need to close Guantanamo because it's become a global symbol
for injustice. Most of that is related to the--not only the
fact that there were a number of individuals who were not
jihadists who were sent to Guantanamo, although they've been
since released and transferred out of the facility, but the
military commissions has a large role to play in that.
The fact that--according to the Inter-American Commission
of Human Rights and international lawyers in most other
countries of the world, the military commissions lack
credibility because they are subject to the discipline of the
executive branch. They're not an independent judicial body, for
example. But also, there's been interference with attorney-
client privilege, and there's been withholding of evidence to
defense counsel on some critical matters that might be relevant
to the defense of their detainees.
So all of these elements, historical and current, combine
to reinforce the notion that rightfully or wrongfully has taken
hold in the minds of many that Guantanamo is a symbol of
injustice and contrary to human rights principles. I regret
that it is so, but that's the fact, and we have to face the
facts as they are.
Mr. Lynch. Very good. I will yield back. Thank you.
Mr. DeSantis. The gentleman yields back.
I just wonder when you are talking about all this due
process, everything, the military commissions aren't even
enough. Well, guess what? We have guys in the field, they are
fighting a war. They are not detectives. They aren't going to
be out there just collecting evidence and fingerprints. That
will lead more of our soldiers and marines to get killed for
sure. So I don't want to go down that road. These guys should
not be treated like they are committing civilian crimes. They
should be treated as if they are violating the laws of war. And
when they are being captured in accordance with that, that
should be the prism by which we see this.
And I fear that going the other direction where you somehow
need to give them a quasi-civilian trial with basic
constitutional rights almost, at the end of the day in the
normal battlefield you are just not going to be able to do that
without really diverting the mission. And I don't want to be
doing that.
So I appreciate the witnesses here today, and I appreciate
your testimony. And I know this will be an issue that will
continue to rear its head. And we will certainly be
investigating any future detainees who are released and pose a
danger to our country.
This hearing is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:55 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]