June 17, 2011 in Idaho

Risch: Keep detainees at Guantanamo indefinitely

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Betsy Russell photo

Sen. Jim Risch
(Full-size photo)

BOISE - Idaho Sen. Jim Risch, who visited the Guantanamo Bay detention facility this week, says he believes it should stay open indefinitely, and the detainees there should be held indefinitely - though President Barack Obama pledged shortly after he was elected to shut the facility down.

The issue has been hotly debated in Congress, which voted in December to ban transfers of Guantanamo detainees to U.S. locations or to third countries, except under very narrow circumstances. That ban is temporary; the national defense authorization act, which is now pending in the Senate, could determine Guantanamo’s future.

“It’s been a matter of constant debate in Washington, D.C., constant debate in the media and constant debate in the international community,” said Risch, who serves on the Senate foreign relations and intelligence committees.

Risch, who visited the facility in Cuba on Monday, said conditions there are far better than they were shortly after the 9/11 attacks, when they caused international outrage. “The orange jumpsuits are gone. Camp X-Ray is closed,” Risch said. “The pendulum has swung way back the other way.”

Detainees at Guantanamo now “get very nourishing meals,” Risch said, and “the sensitivity toward their cultural and religious practices is very high.” He said, “When I was there it was 106 degrees and humidity was higher, but once you entered the facility, it was air-conditioned and kept at a very moderate temperature. … It’s a whole different ballgame than it was 10 years ago.”

The initial facility there, opened shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks, was open-air and tin-roofed. It’s now a modern prison facility. Guantanamo now houses 171 men, mostly from Yemen, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia; at its height, it had more than 700.

“They’re people who were taken on the battle field and have important information,” Risch said. “In fact, they are prisoners of war - they were picked up during a war.” They may not have been uniformed soldiers, Risch said, but he said the war on terrorism is a different kind of war. “We have to defend ourselves,” he said. “The hostilities are ongoing.”

Mason Clutter, counsel to the Rule of Law program at the Constitution Project, a bipartisan Washington, D.C. think tank that tracks issues related to Guantanamo, said for her organization, “It’s not a matter of closing the facility or keeping it open - it’s more of a matter of ending the harmful policies that have come out of Guantanamo, the policies of using military commissions to try these individuals, as well as the policy of detention without charge. … There may be room to hold, pursuant to the laws of war, some of the individuals who are at Guantanamo Bay, but certainly not all of them.”

Clutter said the Obama Administration in 2010 identified 36 of the detainees as appropriate for prosecution either in military commissions or civilian federal court, while it identified 47 for indefinite detention without charge. But the December congressional vote stymied moves toward civilian trials; in March, President Obama issued an executive order permitting ongoing detention, while allowing new military commission charges and requiring periodic reviews of those detainees held indefinitely.

The Constitution Project maintains that detainees at Guantanamo aren’t receiving appropriate due process. “It’s against the rule of law,” Clutter said. “It also damages the U.S. reputation abroad.”

Risch said Obama has offered no appropriate alternative to Guantanamo. “There is no alternative on the table of what they’re going to do,” he said.

Congress has been leery of Obama’s plans to close Guantanamo, and a group of mostly Republican senators introduced legislation in May to keep the facility open and designate it for “current and future detention” of terrorism suspects tied to al Quaeda, the Taliban or “an affiliated group.”

Five comments on this story so far. Add yours!

• 

  west on June 17 at 5:03 p.m.

  In WWII they would have been executed, 10 years ago…

• 

  nitro71 on June 17 at 6:00 p.m.

  So, the US holds people without trial for years on end.. This is what oppressive dictatorships do. Doesn’t make me feel safe or proud. What would Jesus do?

• 

  hawken on June 17 at 6:44 p.m.

  Terrorists are enemies, they want to kill us. Keep them at GITMO.

  Pretty simple.

• 

  RedCedar on June 17 at 7:42 p.m.

  “Detainees at Guantanamo now “get very nourishing meals,” Risch said, and “the sensitivity toward their cultural and religious practices is very high.”

  That’s very nice. The only problem is that not only have they not been convicted of a crime but in most cases they have not been charged with a crime. They were swept up in the excitement of the early days of the Iraq and Afghan wars, held based on the fact that the US can do whatever it damn well pleases, and now nobody wants to deal with them according to any set of laws — civilian, military, or international. I say turn them all loose. Most will happily scurry back into oblivion and spend the rest of their lives trying not to be noticed by anyone with any connection to the US government. A few will no doubt dedicate themselves to getting revenge on the US. So what? We’re a big strong country. A few angry individuals are not going to do us any real harm. Ignoring our own very successful constitution just because we’re afraid of a handful of guerrilla fighters picked up in a war 10 years ago is like someone going around their house trying to kill a fly with a baseball bat, and destroying half their possessions in the process.

• 

  johnclarke on June 17 at 9:45 p.m.

  “hawken on June 17 at 6:44 p.m.

  Terrorists are enemies, they want to kill us. Keep them at GITMO.

  Pretty simple.”

  Guilty until you decide otherwise? Nice.