Republicans Express Concerns On Guantanamo Executive Order
"I think the important thing to remember is we're talking about terrorists here," House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) told reporters in reaction to President Obama's executive order to close Guantamo Bay and move its prisoners to U.S. facilities.
CBS News' Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen notes that "there are several high-profile post-9/11 terrorists—including Richard Reid, Zacarias Moussaoui and Jose Padilla who already are in US prisons having been tried and convicted." All three men are detained in the Supermax facility in Colorado.
"Do we bring them into our borders? Do we release them back into the battlefield like some sixty-one detainees that have been released we know are back on the battlefield....to get back and rejoin this fight," Mr. Boehner asked.
The House leader explained that he feels "there's a lot of important questions with regard to the closing Guantanomo without having a policy in place for what you are going to do with those that are there."
Mr. Boehner said if he were making the decision he would have laid out a plan to deal with the detainees before issuing the executive order. "If it were me I would have a commission look at the whole issue of what do you do with detainees? How should they be treated? Where should they be housed? What legal process should they go through? All of that in my view should happen before the decision is made to automatically close our detention facility there," he said.
Meanwhile, U.S. Representative Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, issued statement which said, "In briefings yesterday, the administration could not answer questions as to what they will do with any new jihadists or enemy combatants that we capture."
"What are we to do with these people, bring them to the very place they hoped to attack: The United States? ," Hoekstra asked. "What do we do with confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his fellow terrorist conspirators, offer them jail cells in American communities?"