Jon Kyl: “this amendment was drafted to provide money for the capture or information leading to the capture of Osama bin Laden.…”

“this amendment was drafted to provide money for the capture or information leading to the capture of Osama bin Laden. Senator Sununu and others looked at that and said: Wait a minute, this is a war. It may well occur that we cannot just capture him, he may have to be killed. So we added the words ``or death'' to the amendment by a second-degree amendment. That was adopted this morning. Next week, we are going to get right back to the argument about criminalization versus war. There is in the bill--and we are going to have to strike the language with an amendment--language that requires us to send lawyers over to Iraq and Afghanistan to represent these terrorists we capture on the battlefield. We would have to give them legal representation in theater, and we would have to show them classified information that may be used in their prosecution or continued detention. Mr. President, I have said that is nuts. I hate to use that kind of a phrase on the Senate floor, but I don't think it represents good policy. We are going to have to strike that language from the bill. That is criminalization of the war. This is a war against evil people who will kill us if they can. The sooner we recognize that fact and deal with them, the sooner we will defeat the enemy, and the enemy will no longer represent a threat to us. We cannot assume they don't really mean it. We cannot assume we can negotiate with them.”