Jon Kyl: “Now, the Defense authorization bill is extraordinarily important to our troops. To add a totally extraneous provision…”

“Now, the Defense authorization bill is extraordinarily important to our troops. To add a totally extraneous provision amending a different bill to the Defense authorization bill, especially one which carries the suggestion of a Presidential veto, would be the height of irresponsibility on the part of the Senate. The substantive arguments of the Department of Justice with respect to habeas are correct, and the Senate should not, therefore, seek to amend another statute in the Defense authorization bill, thus inviting a veto of the bill. Related to the habeas corpus provision is the amendment that is now pending offered by Senator Graham of South Carolina. That amendment would strike a provision of the Defense authorization bill--section 1023--that also relates to the subject of treatment of detainees. Unfortunately, the way the committee bill was written, the bill that is before us right now, if we retain that language and we don't strike it, as the Graham amendment would do, we would essentially be returning to a law enforcement approach to terrorists that, frankly, failed us before 9/11 and obviously does not work in the post-9/11 context. We can't deal with all of the enemy combatants as criminal defendants. These people who are picked up on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be dealt with in the same way as criminal defendants in our court system. Senator Graham's amendment would strike these harmful provisions of the bill.”