Posted on 05/21/2006 2:02:10 PM PDT by SandRat
WASHINGTON, May 21, 2006 – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today discounted a U.N. committee's call for the U.S. to close its terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Rice said a U.N. Committee Against Torture report, released May 19, criticizing U.S. treatment of detainees at Guantanamo was written "by remote control."
"It would have been helpful if the reporter for that report had actually gone to Guantanamo; it's a little difficult to do this by remote control. And we did have a sense that this report, as John Bellinger, who is our legal counsel, said, might have been written before we even were given a real opportunity to respond," Rice told host Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday" this morning. "It would have been helpful if there had been full assessment, because people who go to Guantanamo see quite a different picture."
The U.S. doesn't want to be the world's jailer, the secretary said, but somebody has to fill that role as the war on terror continues.
"We will be delighted when we can close down Guantanamo," she said. "Everybody wants to close down Guantanamo. But I would ask this: If we do close down Guantanamo, what becomes of the hundreds of dangerous people who were picked up on battlefields in Afghanistan, who were picked up because of their associations with al Qaeda?
"We do have an obligation," she continued. "The president has an obligation to also keep America -- and, by the way, many of our allies -- safe by making certain that people don't return to the battlefield."
The government, Rice said, works constantly to repatriate detainees who don't pose a threat if released. "Hundreds of people have been released from Guantanamo," she said. "We work almost daily with governments to try to get people returned to their native lands, if their governments will take them and give assurances that they are both not going to be mistreated, and that they're going to be watched and monitored so that they can't commit crimes again." The difference between the war on terror and past conflicts is one that makes a facility like Guantanamo necessary, Rice explained.
"This is a different kind of war. We cannot be in a situation in which we're just turning loose on hapless populations, or unprotected populations, people who have vowed to kill more Americans if they're released," she said. "So I would just ask people to be cognizant of the dilemma here. Absolutely we want to see the day when Guantanamo can close. Absolutely we want to see the day when we don't have to play this role. But somebody had better play the role of making certain that dangerous people don't get released back into the population."
On "Meet the Press" today, Rice said she would not project a timetable for the Guantanamo facility's ultimate closure. Rather, she said, that time would come when it was certain that dangerous people weren't being released.
Rice told host Tim Russert that his question about Guantanamo closing would be different if it had closed and terrorists detained there went back to work.
"We want a result in which we are certain that dangerous people are not going to be let back out onto the streets," she said, "because the day that we are facing them again on the battlefield -- and, by the way, that has happened in a couple of cases that people were released from Guantanamo -- the question is going to be quite a different one from you or from others, which is 'Why didn't you make provisions to keep dangerous criminals, dangerous terrorists, that you knew were terrorists, out of America's neighborhoods or London's neighborhoods or the neighborhoods of Amman Jordan?'"
CLub GITMO Ping
Thursday's uprising at Guantanamo Bay was probably motivated by three major goals: (a) Kill or seriously injure American guards; (b) Interrupt and delay the rendition process, and (c) Get the Gitmo issue back into the MSM, and re-open the debate on redention, military tribunals, and the ultimate disposition of terrorist suspects. The MSM may not realize it, but there was a lot more going on in that cellblock that a mere suicide attempt. -- Spook86
June 16,2005, still applicable.
The naked polical activism of the Drive-By Media should be exposed daily. Responses like Rice's are the way to do it. The defensive posture that the Bush Administration has assumed for the last 5 years in face of the media smears is suicidal for the administration and the nation as a whole.
The administration needs to contract with Joe Arpaio, the notorious sheriff of Maricopa County, AZ, to give Gitmo a makeover. That would take care of this anti-social behavior tout de suite.
Rice to UN and media: F' You, thank you very much.
Most people who only get their info from the MSM don't know that, by "UN", they mean, "The Arab voting block that controls the UN."
They should close Gitmo! And house the ingrates in a dog pound and cat cages! Either that or they can shovel pig crap at a large contract facility like Murphy farms!
Yeah. The objections and accusations of that jellyfish organization tell us that Guantanamo Bay is highly effective. They always seem to spout off things that are anti-American. Anyway, when you are dealing with scum that wants to destroy, you don't make their life immeasurably comfortable...
As has been said; "Don't go walking in a bad neighborhood with a toy French Poodle. Take an Angry Doberman on leash in one hand and a snarling German Shepherd on leash in the other Hand."
As a youngin', we had one of each of these dogs. Both are quite protective of their owners. And most especially, children...
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