STATEMENT OF CONGRESSWOMAN JANE HARMAN (D-VENICE)

IT IS TIME TO CLOSE THE
GUANTÁNAMO BAY DETENTION FACILITY

Washington, D.C. Mr. Chairman, the September 11th terrorist attacks posed a defining challenge for the United States.  Our nation was savagely attacked; our peace and prosperity threatened.  A swift and decisive response was necessary. 

Many of us offered to work with the Administration to come up with a legal framework to guide that response.  One that offered the flexibility needed to meet the challenges posed by al Qaida and 21st century terrorism, but also respected human rights and the rule of law.

Unfortunately, the Administration went its own way and failed to establish a widely accepted legal foundation for its actions.  We are all now paying the price.

Nowhere are the problems created by the White House’s myopic approach more apparent than at the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. 

I have visited Gitmo three times. 

Each time, I asked hard questions about how the men detained there were being treated, how long they would be held there, and what efforts were being made to ensure that the innocent were released.  By the third visit, it became very clear that I was getting the run-around.

The truth was that the Administration was adrift in what I call the “fog of law.”  Guantánamo was built on a legal fiction.  The Administration claimed the authority to detain any person it deemed appropriate, to deny that person the protections of US and international law, and to do so indefinitely – so long as that person was held outside US soil. 

The claim was extraordinary, and the Administration seemed unconcerned that it was without sound legal parameters to guide its actions.

At Gitmo, the Administration effectively discarded the procedures that we have used for centuries – in civilian and military tribunals alike – to separate the innocent from the guilty and ensure fair punishment for those that deserve it. 

Hundreds of men were detained at Guantánamo for years, without access to an independent court in which to argue their innocence, without access to the evidence against them, and without protection of the Geneva Conventions. 

These are rights that the United States has long pressed developing countries to adopt, arguing that they are fundamental to any just legal system. 

It should be no surprise that the Administration’s ad hoc procedures appear to have resulted in the improper detention of many individuals whose only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or having the wrong name. 
The Supreme Court brought the curtain down on the Guantánamo legal fiction in its Hamdan decision. 

And now it is time for the Congress to act.

Mr. Chairman, the United States is engaged in a long struggle against al Qaida and other jihadist terror organizations.  These groups are successfully exploiting the antipathy that many in the Arab world – and, increasingly, not just the Arab world – feel toward the West, and toward America in particular. 

In order to erode al Qaida’s appeal and dry up its recruiting base, we have to win the battle for the hearts and minds of the next generation of would-be terrorists.

Guantánamo has become a liability.  The real and perceived injustices occurring there have given our enemies an easy example of our failures and alleged ill intent.  The prison is so widely viewed as illegitimate, so plainly inconsistent with America’s proud legal traditions; it has become a stinging symbol of our tarnished standing abroad.

Defense Secretary Gates has admitted as much, arguing the facility should be closed because its “taint” would render any trials held there illegitimate in the eyes of the world. 

I agree with Secretary Gates.  It is time to shut the prison down.

That is why I am proud to introduce, together with my friend and member of the Armed Services Committee Mr. Abercrombie, legislation to require the closing of the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay.  Senator Feinstein has introduced a similar bill in the Senate.

The bill requires the President to close the facility within one year of enactment, and gives him a range of choices for dealing with the detainees.  These options include transfer to a detainee’s country of origin (so long as that country provides certain assurances regarding treatment of the detainee); transfer to a facility in the United States to be tried before military or civilian authorities (like the 1993 World Trade Center bombers and John Walker Lindh); transfer to a qualified international tribunal; or, if appropriate, outright release.

Make no mistake:  this legislation is not about setting terrorists free.  Many of those held at Gitmo are the worst of the worst – hard-core haters who cannot be rehabilitated.  This legislation is about being true to America’s most fundamental values and legal norms.

Closing Guantánamo alone will not heal America’s moral black eye.  But it is a necessary first step.

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