As President Obama wraps up his trip to Cuba, where he hopes to close the Guantanamo Bay terrorist prison, a House chairman is warning that those the White House would release to other countries “are committed to killing Americans.”
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce added that many of those countries are “ill-equipped to stop them from returning to the battlefield.”
Royce on Tuesday announced plans to hold a hearing Wednesday to press Obama officials on the president’s unfulfilled 2008 presidential campaign promise.
The hearing is titled: “The Administration’s Plan to Close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility: At What Foreign Policy and National Security Cost?”
Scheduled witnesses are:
— Lee Wolosky. special envoy for Guantanamo closure at State.
— Paul M. Lewis, special envoy for Guantanamo closure at the Pentagon.
In a preview, Royce said:
“According to the Obama administration’s own figures, more than 30 percent of detainees released from the prison at Guantanamo Bay have returned to terrorist activities. Those that remain are among the most hardened and highly trained terrorists in the world – and they are committed to killing Americans. This hearing will allow members to question officials from Departments of State and Defense on the president’s plan to close the prison by bringing some of these terrorists to U.S. soil, and releasing others to countries that are ill-equipped to stop them from returning to the battlefield.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
