Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2017

Floor Speech

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Mr. DeSANTIS. Mr. Chair, as we have seen with stark clarity recently, Islamic jihadists are on the march, not only abroad but here at home. I think, once we have individuals in our custody who we know are committed to this destructive ideology and to waging war against the United States--like we have almost 80 of them in Guantanamo Bay now-- they should remain in custody. We don't want to get into a situation in which we are transferring these detainees unwittingly simply because we are on an ideological mission to close Guantanamo Bay, and this facility is a key part of our strategy in fighting the war on terror.

The Obama administration recently admitted that they were not seeking to use an executive order in order to close Gitmo's detention facility, and that is a welcome admission, because that was something that had been reported was being considered behind the scenes.

Recent news reports, perhaps, shed light on why this is a nonstarter. Recent news reports have shown that at least 12 released Guantanamo detainees have attacked U.S. personnel or allied forces in Afghanistan, and they are responsible for killing at least six Americans. These are terrorists we had in our custody who were then released and who went out to kill a half dozen Americans, according to U.S. officials. This is totally unacceptable.

This amendment, which I am cosponsoring with Congressman Pompeo, would ban funding to two DOD offices whose purposes are, simply, to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.

The facts and the reality show that their mission is unwise and unneeded. My amendment would prohibit funds for salaries or expenses for the Office of the Special Envoy for Guantanamo Detention Closure and the Principal Director of the Office of Detainee Policy. The sole mission of the Principal Director of the Office of Detainee Policy is to end detainee operations at Guantanamo Bay. That means either transferring people to the United States or overseas, where we know many of them go back to the jihad once they are released. President Obama also established the Office of the Special Envoy for Guantanamo Detention Closure, which has the same objective.

This amendment will eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy and will help keep Americans safe. As President Obama himself begins to give up on his misguided campaign to close Gitmo, Americans, especially the people whom I represent, can rest assured that none of these terrorists will be brought to their States or, hopefully, will be transferred to countries that are not going to keep tabs on them.

It is time we end the funding for these two offices and get back to protecting Americans and holding those hardened terrorists in a secured facility we already have that is located off our shores.

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Mr. DeSANTIS. Mr. Chair, the fact of the matter is, if you inject them into American prisons with the idea that you are going to be able to 100 percent segregate them and that they are not going to be able to radicalize any other inmates, why would you even want to run that risk?

In terms of bringing them to trial, the problem is that these guys were not captured under civilian law. They were captured under the law of war. If you are expecting our troops to amass legal cases against people they are capturing in war zones, that is going to put more of our troops' lives at risk. If you are in a hot fire zone but if you need to get evidence to make sure that that could withstand a court of law, they should be held under the law of war, not under civilian laws under which Americans would be.

I am sorry. I don't care if Bush released a detainee--or Obama. It is not about partisan games for me. If detainees are released in Afghanistan and they kill Americans, that is a bad thing, and I don't want to repeat that. The people who are there right now are some of the most radical detainees. These are people who have been reviewed for years, and no one would have ever thought that they should have been released. So why on Earth would you want to run the risk of putting more of these guys out into circulation given that we know Americans have already been killed?

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Mr. DeSANTIS. Mr. Chair, like a lot of these numbers, I mean, they get around-the-clock medical care and halal meals. I would be fine with curtailing that. If we could have paid that money to save those American troops, I would pay it every day, every single day.

I am a little confused by this argument that we would actually reward people who were picked up in combat zones when they are not wearing uniforms. That is essentially rewarding these terrorists who are not wearing insignia and they are not following the laws of war. So to then give them a civilian trial where someone actually followed the laws of war, they would simply end up being held under Geneva III. To me, that totally skews the incentive.

I think it is a good amendment, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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