Congress will hold firm on keeping President Barack Obama from closing the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba prison, even though it was one of his campaign pledges back in 2008, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said Friday.
"We passed the National Defense Authorization Act last Congress that prohibits him from closing Guantanamo Bay," the Texas lawmaker told Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "That bill is up for reauthorization as I speak . . . we are going to hold firm on this."
It would be "highly reckless and irresponsible to close down Guantanamo Bay," McCaul said. "The fact is, he just released 15 of some of the most hardened terrorists, Osama bin Laden's bodyguards, explosive experts and al-Qaida and Taliban commanders are now released to the UAE, and he wants to release 20 more."
McCaul said that one of the "spookiest things" he has ever seen came during a tour of Guantanamo Bay was when he saw Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks, "bowing down to Mecca" during prayer hour.
He said he hopes the 9/11 terrorist will eventually be tried and executed, but at the same time, Obama has been getting around the prohibitions of released detainees into the United States.
On Thursday, Vice President Joe Biden said it's likely Obama will close the prison before he leaves office, according to The Huffington Post, and McCaul said Friday he believes that's "very dangerous."
"One third of those who have been released have returned to the battlefield, and many of them have killed Americans since then," McCaul said.
Further, Congress had invested a great deal of money into the prison, McCaul said, and he thinks the trials for the prisoners still there need to move forward.
I would also argue when we do apprehend terrorists on the battlefield, that we move them to Guantanamo for interrogation," McCaul said. "There's a great intelligence value to interrogating these terrorists. Drone strikes are great to take them off the battlefield, but there's also high value to interrogation in terms of disrupting future plots against the United States and the homeland."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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