WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito further explained their positions Wednesday on President Obama’s decision to close Guantanamo Bay.
Manchin’s statement released Tuesday night appeared to support Obama’s decision, but he said he doesn’t necessarily support his plan.
“Where are you getting I support the plan?,” he asked MetroNews “Talkline” host Hoppy Kercheval. “I support we should explore closing Gitmo because I’ve been there. The plan the president has presented is so vague, I couldn’t support it. I don’t have enough detail to support it.”
Manchin was most concerned about the money being spent at Gitmo to keep terrorists in custody, which he thought could be done as effectively on the mainland.
“The bottom line that we have today, we spend $445 million a year. If you take 91 prisoners that we have, that’s almost $5 million per prisoner,” he said.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito was vehemently opposed to Obama’s decision from the beginning.
“If I were one of the 13 affected states that the president is supposedly talking about sending them to, I would be screaming to high, high heaven,” said Capito.
Capito was concerned that if terrorists were transferred to the U.S., they would try to take advantage of the legal system.
“You can’t tell me they wouldn’t try to infiltrate our own prison systems, use our American legal system to their advantage,” she said. “I think Guantanamo is well suited for the purposes it was set up for in terms of detention.”
Manchin said he was in favor of keeping Gitmo open, until he visited and saw that prisoners there had too many privileges.
“I would support a plan to close Gitmo if I knew we could try these people, convict them and put them away in prisons throughout the United States as we have already done,” Manchin said. “I’m not convinced (Obama) has a plan to do that.”
Capito didn’t buy the argument that terrorists can use Guantanamo as a recruiting base; she said that would happen anywhere.
“To me that’s a moot argument that doesn’t have much teeth. It sounds difficult, but in reality, these people want to destroy us. They’re going to keep recruiting through whatever methods they can use.”
The U.S. military prison facility in Cuba was established in 2002 under then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.