Obama is making mistake in closing Gitmo

Jake Tapper quotes Cheney on Bill Bennett show:

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"Guantanamo is sort of a symbol. I guess, to the left in this country and maybe to some of our critics overseas," the vice president said. "But the fact is it's a very well-run facility. The Red Cross is down there all the time checking on it; reporters are free to go down, members of Congress and so forth, to look at it and see what kind of facility it is. And the fact is, it's first-rate."

Mr. Cheney said that too many people have already been freed from Guantanamo.

People forget "we've got a couple hundred very bad actors down there," said the vice president. "We've been through, several times, a scrub of the population in Guantanamo. And a good many more have been returned than we still hold, have been returned to their home countries. Now, out of that group, some number has, in fact, gone back onto the battlefield against us." He said the Bush administration has "erred a bit on the side" of "letting the wrong people go on a few occasions."

Those left in the facility, he said, are "the hardcore."

"These are al Qaeda members," Mr. Cheney said. "These are people that we captured on the battlefield. These are folks whose main objective in life is to kill Americans." Cheney said the remaining detainees "are unlawful combatants, terrorists, and by definition, their objective is to achieve their political goals by killing as many civilians as possible. They don't abide by the laws of war."

Mr. Cheney noted that "there's never yet been a congressman come forward and volunteer to take 250 al Qaeda members in his district ... So then the question is, where are you going to put them? And you've got to sort that all out before you close Guantanamo."

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Closing Gitmo is a majorly bad idea. It is the best place to keep these terrorist and the only reason they are doing is is for PR purposes to please those who don't like the US anyway. Closing Gitmo is not going to change that and it is going to make the world more dangerous for everyone. It is a returned to the failed policies of the Clinton administration and shows Obama's ignorance of history.