Chuck Hagel: “We have a constitutional obligation to provide for the defense of this Nation of ours and a moral responsibility to pass…”

It is a responsibility of the Congress.

The President has determined that closing it is a national security imperative.

It is hard to overstate how damaging the continued existence of the Detention Facility at Guantanamo has been and continues to be.

Because I had the responsibility and I play my own game here. And that is because by law, I am the one official in government charged with certification with release of detainees. I take that responsibility very seriously.