One Republican senator is slamming the administration for transferring Islamic extremists out of Guantanamo Bay at the same time Paris police were working to identify those killed in an Islamic State attack.
Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., said Tuesday that the recent release of Gitmo detainees occurred just four-and-a-half hours after French officials raided the Bataclan to stop an attack there.
“While the White House undoubtedly regrets this coincidence, the fact that the administration released five Islamist terrorists from Guantanamo and flew them back to the Middle East at the same time that French authorities were struggling to identify and remove the bodies of those slain by Islamist terrorists in Paris underscores the dangerous disconnect between the Obama administration’s policies and the reality of the threats we confront,” Ayotte said in a statement.
The Pentagon announced on Nov. 15 the transfer of Ali Ahmad Muhammad al-Razihi, Khalid Abd-al-Jabbar Muhammad Uthman al-Qadasi, Adil Said al-Hajj Ubayd al-Busays, Sulayman Awad Bin Uqayl al-Nahdi and Fahmi Salem Said al-Asani to the United Arab Emirates. Their transfer brought the total number of detainees left at the military detention facility in Cuba to 107.
“Unfortunately, in order to fulfill a misguided campaign promise to close Guantanamo, the administration has been willing to gamble that the dangerous terrorists it is transferring from Guantanamo will not reengage in the fight against us,” Ayotte said.
Obama had promised when he took office in 2009 to close the prison within a year. The administration is now racing to close the prison before Obama leaves office in 2017. It has already transferred 20 detainees this year, according to data compiled by The New York Times.
The administration had been working on a plan to close the prison that it could present to Capitol Hill, including the costs associated with moving and housing those prisoners in the U.S who can not be released. Pentagon teams visited military and public prisons in South Carolina, Kansas and Colorado to make cost estimates.
Some reporting last month suggested that the White House had scrapped its push to finalize a plan at this time, which Republicans commended on Capitol Hill.
“Once again, the president has been forced to confront the hard reality of Islamic terrorism and admit that closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay isn’t as easy as it sounds on the campaign trail. Going back to the drawing board on a vague, ill-considered ‘plan’ is a good start,” Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas and chairman of the House Armed Services committee, said in a statement last month.
But Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters on Monday that a plan was still in the works and that he had no updates to provide.
