New Bill to Block Funding for Guantanamo Bay Closure

By: Maya Nesbit | WSPA-TV
Published: February 05, 2009

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) made the following statement after he joined U.S. Senator James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) and others in sponsoring the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility Safe Closure Act. The bill would prohibit the use of any federal funds to transfer detainees currently being held prisoner at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to any facility in the United States. In addition, the bill would prohibit any funds to modify or construct any facility in the United States to house enemy combatants detained at Guantanamo Bay.

“Guantanamo Bay is home to the most hardened and battle-tested terrorists in the world,” said U.S. Senator Jim DeMint. “It is dangerous to bring these terrorists onto U.S. soil and make targets out of our own communities. Guantanamo Bay may cause the Obama Administration heartburn, but shutting it down puts American lives in danger.”

Only the most dangerous terrorists are detained at Guantanamo Bay. It is estimated that as many as 70,000 Taliban and al Qaeda fighters have been captured and fewer than 800 - one-tenth of one percent - were deemed of such high intelligence value or posed such a severe threat that they needed to be securely confined. Among the detainees at Guantanamo Bay are al Qaeda financial specialists, organizational experts, bomb-makers, and recruiters.

Many have questioned the merits of closing Guantanamo Bay and bringing detainees to American soil.

American Enterprise Institute’s John Yoo: “Mr. Obama may have opened the door to further terrorist acts on U.S. soil by shattering some of the nation's most critical defenses.”

Former Vice President Dick Cheney: “If you release the hard-core al Qaeda terrorists that are held at Guantanamo, I think they go back into the business of trying to kill more Americans and mount further mass-casualty attacks.”