President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder (White House photo).
Answering questions submitted by users on YouTube Monday afternoon, President Barack Obama said that “pretty rank politics” were delaying the closure of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay.
“One of the things that we’ve had to try to communicate to the country at large is that, historically, we’ve tried a lot of terrorists in our courts; we have them in our federal prisons; they’ve never escaped,” said Obama. “And these folks are no different. But it’s been one of those things that’s been subject to a lot of, in some cases, pretty rank politics.”
Obama said his administration will “work through both in Congress but also with public opinion, so that people understand that ultimately this is the right thing to do. By closing Guantanamo, we can regain the moral high ground in the battle against these terrorist organizations.”
Attorney General Eric Holder has been facing increasing criticism for his decision to hold civilian trials for some of the Guantanamo detainees. The proposed Justice Department budget released yesterday included $237 million to buy and upgrade an Illinois prison to hold Guantanamo detainees as they await trial.
On Tuesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) plans to introduce a bipartisan bill to block funding for civilian trials of five alleged plotters of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Graham said that eight other GOP senators and Democrats Jim Webb of Virginia and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, as well as independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, supported the measure.
But Obama said that his administration had reviewed each case individually “in a way that stands up to our standards of due process and legal scrutiny.”
“There’s been no bigger propaganda weapon for many of these extremists than pointing to Guantanamo and saying that we don’t live up to our own ideals,” said Obama. “And that’s something that I strongly believe we have to resist, even if it has some costs to it, and even if it’s not always the most politically popular thing to do.”
More than 11,000 questions were submitted to the White House by YouTube viewers, according to Politico, and more than 640,000 people voted on the questions. The questions were submitted via video or text and Most of the queries, submitted by video or text, were about the economy, health care, energy, job creation, foreign policy and Wall Street, Politico said.
Video of the exchange is embedded and the transcript is available below.
From the White House:
THE PRESIDENT: Well, it’s pretty straightforward. Number one, you’ve got a whole bunch of individuals in Guantanamo, some of whom are very dangerous, some of whom were low-level fighters, some of whom the courts have determined should never have been put there in the first place. We’ve had to evaluate each of those cases, hundreds of cases, one by one, to determine what these various categories are, and do it in a way that stands up to our standards of due process and legal scrutiny.
Then we’ve got to figure out, if we’re closing Guantanamo, where are we going to put them? And we have proposed that there are a number of options on the continental United States where you could hold these people as trials either in military commissions or in Article 3 courts are pending. But unfortunately, there has been a lot of political resistance, and, frankly, some of it just politically motivated — some of it people being legitimately scared about, well, if we’ve got somebody who we’ve been told is a terrorist in our backyard, will that make us a target?
One of the things that we’ve had to try to communicate to the country at large is that, historically, we’ve tried a lot of terrorists in our courts; we have them in our federal prisons; they’ve never escaped. And these folks are no different. But it’s been one of those things that’s been subject to a lot of, in some cases, pretty rank politics.
And we’ve got to work through that process because Congress ultimately controls the purse strings in creating new facilities. If Congress makes a decision that they are going to try to block the opening of a new facility, it potentially constrains what our administration can do. And so this is something that we’ve got to work through both in Congress but also with public opinion so that people understand that ultimately this is the right thing to do. By closing Guantanamo, we can regain the moral high ground in the battle against these terrorist organizations.
There’s been no bigger propaganda weapon for many of these extremists than pointing to Guantanamo and saying that we don’t live up to our own ideals. And that’s something that I strongly believe we have to resist, even if it has some costs to it, and even if it’s not always the most politically popular thing to do.
