Sen. Cotton Touring Guantanamo Bay Prison

Arkansas GOP Sen. Tom Cotton is touring the Guantanamo Bay prison compound in Cuba with a group of freshman Republican senators, Politico reported.

"He just feels like it's an important counterterrorism tool and wants to see it himself firsthand," said Caroline Rabbitt, Cotton's spokeswoman, according to Politico.

The freshman foreign policy hawk has been a critic of the Obama administration's decision to close the facility, saying last month that the United States "should be sending more terrorists there for further interrogation to keep this country safe."

"As far as I'm concerned, every last one of them can rot in hell," Cotton said of the Guantanamo detainees during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in February. "But as long as they don't do that, they can rot in Guantanamo Bay."

Sens. Joni Ernst of Iowa, Mike Rounds of South Dakota, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and James Lankford of Oklahoma will also be on the trip, according to Politico.

Cotton was the author of the controversial open letter that was sent to Iranian leaders earlier this week. Forty-six other senators signed the letter which he described as a civics lesson about the way the U.S. constitutional system works.

The letter warned that any deal the president struck with Iran could be overturned by Congress or reversed by a future president.

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