Obama: No "Easy Answer" On Gitmo
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President Barack Obama forcefully defended his decision to close the Guantanamo detention camp Thursday and said some of the terror suspects held there would be brought to top-security prisons in the United States despite fierce opposition in Congress.
He insisted the transfer would not endanger Americans and promised to work with lawmakers to develop a system for holding detainees who can't be tried and can't be turned loose from the Navy-run prison in Cuba. He spoke one day after the Senate voted resoundingly to deny him money to close the prison.
"There are no neat or easy answers here," Mr. Obama said in a speech in which he pledged anew to clean up what he said was "quite simply a mess" at Guantanamo that he had inherited from the Bush administration.
Moments after Mr. Obama concluded, former Vice President Dick Cheney delivered his own address across town defending the decisions of the Bush administration in dealing with terrorism. Expressing no remorse for the actions the Bush White House had ordered, Cheney said under the same circumstances he would make the same decisions "without hesitation." (Read more on Cheney's speech in Hotsheet.)
Mr. Obama noted that roughly 500 detainees already had been released by the Bush administration. There are 240 at Guantanamo now. The president said that 50 of those had been cleared to be sent to other countries - although he did not identify which countries might be willing to take them.
Mr. Obama conceded that some Guantanamo detainees would end up in U.S. prisons and said those facilities were tough enough to house even the most dangerous inmates.
The president decried arguments used against his plans.
"We will be ill-served by the fear-mongering that emerges whenever we discuss this issue," he declared.
Speaking at the National Archives, Mr. Obama said he wouldn't do anything to endanger the American people.
He said opening and continuing the military prison "set back the moral authority that is America's strongest currency in the world."
"I can tell you that the wrong answer is to pretend like this problem will go away if we maintain an unsustainable status quo," Mr. Obama said. "As president, I refuse to allow this problem to fester. Our security interests won't permit it. Our courts won't allow it. And neither should our conscience."
Mr. Obama said his administration was in the process of studying each of the remaining Guantanamo detainees "to determine the appropriate policies for dealing with them."
"Nobody has ever escaped from one of our `supermax' prisons which hold hundreds of convicted terrorists," Obama said.
He described this group as those "who cannot be prosecuted yet who pose a clear danger to the American people."
"I want to be honest: This is the toughest issue we will face," Obama said.
He said his administration would "exhaust every avenue that we have" to prosecute detainees but there would still be some left "who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes" yet remain a threat.
Among these, he said, are prisoners who have expressed allegiance to Osama bin Laden "or otherwise made it clear they want to kill Americans."
"So going forward, my administration will work with Congress to develop an appropriate legal regime" to handle such detainees "so that our efforts are consistent with our values and our Constitution."
"We do not have the luxury of starting from scratch," an administration official told CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller.
Mr. Obama criticized what he said was an effort to politicize the issue.
"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. But if we continue to make decisions from within a climate of fear, we will make more mistakes," he said.
Obama said he had no intention of looking back and "relitigating the policies" of the Bush administration.
But at the same time, he strongly criticized former President George W. Bush's actions. "Our government made decisions based upon fear rather than foresight and all too often trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions," he said.
"In other words, we went off course."
The president again rejected the idea of an independent commission that would investigate the whole range of national security issues under the Bush administration.
"I recognize that many still have a strong desire to focus on the past. When it comes to the actions of the last eight years, some Americans are angry; others want to re-fight debates that have been settled, most clearly at the ballot box in November," Mr. Obama said.
"I know that these debates lead directly to a call for a fuller accounting, perhaps through an independent commission," he said. But he insisted that "our existing democratic institutions are strong enough to deliver accountability."
He also defended his decision to try to block the court-ordered release of detainee abuse photos. "Release would inflame anti-American opinion" and threaten American soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mr. Obama said. His decision against releasing the photos has been criticized by human-rights groups.
Mr. Obama had first suggested he would allow the photos to be released, but changed his mind after listening to advice from the military and intelligence advisers.
On another recent controversy, he defended his decision to release CIA interrogation memos, saying there was "no overriding reason to protect them." He said the interrogation methods, which included waterboarding, were already known - and that he had banned them.
Cheney praised Mr. Obama for two "wise" decisions - his handling of the war in Afghanistan and his decision to try to block the court-ordered release of detainee-abuse photos. "He deserves our support" for such actions, Cheney said.
But, the former vice president said, the current administration's actions on Guantanamo and other steps in the war against terrorism "should not be based on slogans and campaign rhetoric, but on a truthful telling of history."
Cheney has become the most outspoken high-ranking Bush official in criticizing the Obama team, suggesting steps the new president has taken have made the country less safe.
Cheney denounced Mr. Obama's announcement on his second day in office that he would close Guantanamo. He said the decision came with "little deliberation and no plan."
"Now, the president says some of these terrorists should be brought to American soil for trial in our court system. Others, he says, will be shipped to third countries. But so far, the United States has had little luck getting other countries to take hardened terrorists."
Cheney spoke at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.
The former Vice President suggested that when terrorists "see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations or whether foreign terrorists have constitutional rights, they don't stand back in awe of our legal system and wonder whether they had misjudged us all along."
"Instead, the terrorists see just what they were hoping for: our unity gone, our resolve shaken, our leaders distracted," he said. "In short, they see weakness and opportunity."
© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report. He insisted the transfer would not endanger Americans and promised to work with lawmakers to develop a system for holding detainees who can't be tried and can't be turned loose from the Navy-run prison in Cuba. He spoke one day after the Senate voted resoundingly to deny him money to close the prison.
"There are no neat or easy answers here," Mr. Obama said in a speech in which he pledged anew to clean up what he said was "quite simply a mess" at Guantanamo that he had inherited from the Bush administration.
Moments after Mr. Obama concluded, former Vice President Dick Cheney delivered his own address across town defending the decisions of the Bush administration in dealing with terrorism. Expressing no remorse for the actions the Bush White House had ordered, Cheney said under the same circumstances he would make the same decisions "without hesitation." (Read more on Cheney's speech in Hotsheet.)
Mr. Obama noted that roughly 500 detainees already had been released by the Bush administration. There are 240 at Guantanamo now. The president said that 50 of those had been cleared to be sent to other countries - although he did not identify which countries might be willing to take them.
Mr. Obama conceded that some Guantanamo detainees would end up in U.S. prisons and said those facilities were tough enough to house even the most dangerous inmates.
The president decried arguments used against his plans.
"We will be ill-served by the fear-mongering that emerges whenever we discuss this issue," he declared.
Speaking at the National Archives, Mr. Obama said he wouldn't do anything to endanger the American people.
He said opening and continuing the military prison "set back the moral authority that is America's strongest currency in the world."
Mr. Obama spoke in front of a copy of the Constitution, to members of the Judge Advocate General's Corps, diplomatic, policy and development officials and representatives of civil liberties groups.
FULL TEXT: Read President Obama's Entire Speech Here.
"I can tell you that the wrong answer is to pretend like this problem will go away if we maintain an unsustainable status quo," Mr. Obama said. "As president, I refuse to allow this problem to fester. Our security interests won't permit it. Our courts won't allow it. And neither should our conscience."
Mr. Obama said his administration was in the process of studying each of the remaining Guantanamo detainees "to determine the appropriate policies for dealing with them."
"Nobody has ever escaped from one of our `supermax' prisons which hold hundreds of convicted terrorists," Obama said.
Mr. Obama used the speech as an effort to try to retake the initiative on the matter. He spoke a day after the Senate, led by majority Democrats, followed the lead of the House and voted decisively to deny his request for $80 million to close the prison. Lawmakers said they would block the funds until he gave a more detailed accounting of what would happen to the detainees.
AnalysisDaniel Farber: Mr. Spock Vs. Jack Bauer
He sought to do that in his speech, but stopped short of offering a clear answer on the key question of what to do with detainees who won't be tried for war crimes but are likely to be held indefinitely.
He described this group as those "who cannot be prosecuted yet who pose a clear danger to the American people."
"I want to be honest: This is the toughest issue we will face," Obama said.
He said his administration would "exhaust every avenue that we have" to prosecute detainees but there would still be some left "who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes" yet remain a threat.
Among these, he said, are prisoners who have expressed allegiance to Osama bin Laden "or otherwise made it clear they want to kill Americans."
"So going forward, my administration will work with Congress to develop an appropriate legal regime" to handle such detainees "so that our efforts are consistent with our values and our Constitution."
"We do not have the luxury of starting from scratch," an administration official told CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller.
Mr. Obama criticized what he said was an effort to politicize the issue.
"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. But if we continue to make decisions from within a climate of fear, we will make more mistakes," he said.
(CBS)
But at the same time, he strongly criticized former President George W. Bush's actions. "Our government made decisions based upon fear rather than foresight and all too often trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions," he said.
"In other words, we went off course."
The president again rejected the idea of an independent commission that would investigate the whole range of national security issues under the Bush administration.
"I recognize that many still have a strong desire to focus on the past. When it comes to the actions of the last eight years, some Americans are angry; others want to re-fight debates that have been settled, most clearly at the ballot box in November," Mr. Obama said.
"I know that these debates lead directly to a call for a fuller accounting, perhaps through an independent commission," he said. But he insisted that "our existing democratic institutions are strong enough to deliver accountability."
He also defended his decision to try to block the court-ordered release of detainee abuse photos. "Release would inflame anti-American opinion" and threaten American soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mr. Obama said. His decision against releasing the photos has been criticized by human-rights groups.
Mr. Obama had first suggested he would allow the photos to be released, but changed his mind after listening to advice from the military and intelligence advisers.
On another recent controversy, he defended his decision to release CIA interrogation memos, saying there was "no overriding reason to protect them." He said the interrogation methods, which included waterboarding, were already known - and that he had banned them.
(CBS)
But, the former vice president said, the current administration's actions on Guantanamo and other steps in the war against terrorism "should not be based on slogans and campaign rhetoric, but on a truthful telling of history."
Cheney has become the most outspoken high-ranking Bush official in criticizing the Obama team, suggesting steps the new president has taken have made the country less safe.
Cheney denounced Mr. Obama's announcement on his second day in office that he would close Guantanamo. He said the decision came with "little deliberation and no plan."
"Now, the president says some of these terrorists should be brought to American soil for trial in our court system. Others, he says, will be shipped to third countries. But so far, the United States has had little luck getting other countries to take hardened terrorists."
Cheney spoke at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.
The former Vice President suggested that when terrorists "see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations or whether foreign terrorists have constitutional rights, they don't stand back in awe of our legal system and wonder whether they had misjudged us all along."
"Instead, the terrorists see just what they were hoping for: our unity gone, our resolve shaken, our leaders distracted," he said. "In short, they see weakness and opportunity."
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And since when is Congress supposed to do whatever a President wants? It's part of our system of checks and balances.
Posted by slownewsday05_ at 6:44 PM : May 21, 2009
Too bad the stupid Congress didn't do the same when Bush was president. We would be in a whole different place today
Posted by mje222 at 7:08 PM : May 21, 2009
These are not Obama's prisoners, they are Cheney's, he owns land in Dubai send them there, and close Quantonomo and save us money. Those are his prisoners that came from his war, and give them to his favorite rich dogs in Dubai, you remember Dubai don't you, that is the people the Bush administration fought to have them to guard our ports, so who better than to guard Cheney's prisoners, you heard Cheney because he was so educated in defense of our country Bush left all that up to him what a mistake,.
These people committed no crime that is chargeable, but still they sit in Bush's concentration camps, some of them having been tortured. the question becomes what to do with these victims of Bush's crimes?
One answer is to let Bush be processed for his crimes, then the victims can sue Bush personally for reparation, as well as anyone who participated in their incarceration.
This is the solution most fair, but while they await the outcome, do they continue to sit in prison for nothing?
This is the mess Bush left us with.
The wise answer is to follow international law, if the country they were taken from will not accept them, and no other country will bear the burden of Bush's crimes, then they become the responsibility of the US, whether the neos like it or not.
The Democrats would do well to have a group of volunteers stand, as close as VP Chaney allows, or his paranoia armed body guards think it safe for a bunch of Democrats to stand, some with different skin pigmentation. to try to tone down some of the shouts by our people.
VP Chaney never expressed sorrow for shooting a friend, do you think he feels sorry for the 4,935 soldiers he sent to their deaths based on a bunch of lies.
Every student of history anywhere in the world, will study our Waterboarding techniques and other inhumane treatment and compare it to the Waterboarding techniques in Spain used by the Inquisition, started and used for 700 years and continued in 1450 by Torquemada. You wont believe this, but citizens that suffered so much under the previous regime, had no compunction using the same tortures techniques so long used on them -for 700 years.
The Muslim Inquistion was started by Calih Mahdi in the 8th Century.
VP Chaney wants to defend and continue to use torture without blinking an eye.
Where did his teachers and parents fail him.
How can be so old and so wealthy, never shot by anybody but probably, like that famous saint, cannot spell compunction, or have knowledge of such feelings. Can you be an American and not be human? Does he wants America to go back to the Muslim tortures of the 8th Century? He has a great following in America, given an opportunity, could he have been our First Hitler in America! With great support by many willing to abandon human rights and civility. Will the South Raise Again or Did Education Kill Hitler and Neanderthal ideals?
I await the answer from history. VP Chaney has a great following.
LETS HAVE EVERY SINGLE REPUBLI'CON' THAT SUPPORTED THE
BUSH/CHENEY IDIOCY TAKE A DETAINEE HOME WITH THEM,
Posted by mcintoshlou at 12:41 PM : May 21, 2009
+ report abuse + permalin
Obama should say ok you think you do not want to close Quantomono. I will close it and release all back to their representing country and that will be that except one thing Quantonomo will be closed by January with or without your help. We can do this the right way or I will do it my way