Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. MORAN. I thank the gentleman from our Judiciary Committee for yielding.

And I want to say to my very good friend from Florida, the chair of the Defense Appropriations Committee, whom I greatly respect, I'm afraid there's a misunderstanding. This amendment is only about those detainees who have been cleared for release or transfer. This is not about the entire 166 people who are there.

These are the people who, after a very careful review, have been cleared for release by the intelligence community and by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. So we're holding these people without cause. We're holding them because we've let our rhetoric get ahead of ourselves.

The fact is that they would be released to their countries of origin. Their countries of origin are going to watch them. But these are people who we have found we have nothing to charge them with, and we have determined that they are not a threat to the United States or to anyone else. They shouldn't have been rounded up. They shouldn't have been detained. And they've been detained for 12 years.

46 detainees are now having to be tube-fed. They're strapped down and a tube is forced down their nose and into their stomach. They're strapped down for 2 hours so the liquid gets digested.

People that have been cleared for release, how can we justify doing this to them?

And what's the end game of our current policy?

Are we going to keep them until they die in prison? People who have been cleared for release and transfer, and we're just going to keep detaining them until they die?

Because that's the only result of the current policy.

Once they get cleaned, they should be released.

Who are we, as a Nation to detain people indefinitely, without legal cause?

It doesn't make sense. It's not American. It's a complete violation of our Constitution, of our most fundamental principle of equal justice under the law.

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Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, we just approved $260 million in the defense authorization bill for Guantanamo. In addition, we approved another $186 billion to construct a new temporary facility, almost half a billion dollars, in addition to what we're now spending. We've spent this year alone $2,670,000 per Guantanamo detainee. Eighty-six of them have been cleared for release. We have no reason to keep them. And yet, we spend that much money on each of them.

In U.S. prisons we spend $34,000 per year per maximum security prisoner. Imagine the discrepancy. We have now convicted 300 terrorists in U.S. prisons. They're being held at 98 Federal prisons for a fraction of the money. And we have no convictions at Guantanamo that haven't been overturned.

Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I think the gentleman just made my case. We don't really need a lot more money for construction for Guantanamo detainees. We've already spent a lot of money there.

The point is, we don't want to deny the ability of the Defense Department to provide whatever is needed for our own military forces at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, not part of the Guantanamo detainees.

I think we've talked this one to death. We're repeating ourselves now. So, in the interest of time, I'm going to yield back the balance of my time.

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