After Visit to Guantanamo Bay, Norton Says U.S. Should Put Inmates on Path to Terrorism Trials in U.S.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—After making her third trip to Guantanamo Bay this past weekend, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), a senior member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee (OGR), today said she was able to tour all parts of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and therefore could compare it to her trip in 2005. Norton said what she found most astonishing is that the U.S. is paying more than $450 million each year for what has become a near-empty facility. The Guantanamo detainee population is down to 116, dramatically reduced from its peak population of 680 detainees in March 2003, as the Administration has apparently found nations willing to accept the transferred prisoners. During her last visit, in 2005, Norton saw prisoners being questioned through a two-way mirror when the facility was full. On this most recent trip, Norton saw very few prisoners in part because it was Ramadan, but the congressional delegation was able to see the entire facility. Norton said that the 116 detainees who remain at Guantanamo are the most hardcore terrorists and that the U.S. has not found a good way to bring their detention to closure. She said the remaining detainees might well face either the death penalty or life in prison if their cases were brought to trial before the military commission. However, with such high stakes, detainees' U.S. defense counsel have been able to raise motions or request information that delays trials. A U.S. Court of Appeals last month threw out a military tribunal's conviction of Ali al-Bahlul, a Yemeni national charged with conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism, since he was not charged with an international war crime, and that he must be tried in the U.S.

"With U.S. taxpayers footing a $450 million yearly bill for a nearly empty detention facility, even Republicans are looking for a way to cut this embarrassing waste," Norton said. "Yet, trying terrorist suspects in the U.S., as a U.S. court has just ordered for one of those held, has produced closure in some of the worst cases. We saw a state-of-the-art court room that is used rarely for the needed trials. Seeing the nearly empty remnants at Guantanamo leads to the inevitable conclusion that the current situation may be unsustainable, but it could go on forever if commission trials at Guantanamo are our only response. Guantanamo has long been used as fodder for extremist terrorist propaganda, and that will only get worse with the U.S. now required to release videos of force feeding an inmate by the end of August. It is time to put an end to a facility that is hurting our nation's reputation at the expense of the American taxpayer."