Secretary of State John Kerry had no answer on Wednesday for how a former terrorist detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was able to return to his career in terrorism after being released, other than to say he shouldn’t have done it.
Kerry was at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee Wednesday, where he was asked by Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., to explain how Ibrahim al Qosi was able to return to help al Qaeda after his release.
“I want to show you a picture of Ibrahim al Qosi, who was recently released by the administration to the Sudanese, and he appeared on some al Qaeda videos recruiting people for AQAP,” Kirk said, referencing al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Kirk asked Kerry if it made sense not to release terrorists to terrorist nations, but Kerry deflected and said simply that al Qosi is doing something he shouldn’t be doing.
“Well senator, he’s not supposed to be doing that,” Kerry replied. “And there are consequences for that, and there will be.”
But rather than outline the consequences, Kerry stressed the importance of releasing more detainees, a remark in line with that of the Obama administration’s effort to close the detention facility.
“The fact is that we’ve got people who’ve been held without charges for 13 years, 14 years in some cases,” Kerry said. “That’s not American, that’s not how we operate.”
