Political Quotes

“today I rise to comment upon the recently passed Defense authorization bill. That bill contained a Graham-Levin- Kyl amendment which dealt with the Combatant Status Review Tribunals and Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay. I was very pleased to join with Senators Levin and Kyl and others to offer this amendment, and I want to thank them for working so hard on this issue. In rising today, I address one particular section of our amendment, the requirement that the tribunals consider whether evidence was coerced. In drafting this section, we were compelled to recognize three basic facts. First, we were compelled to recognize the impracticality of importing domestic criminal protections into a forum constructed to administer what are essentially enemy soldiers; combatants for a very unique enemy, an enemy without uniforms, capitals, or cohesive command structures, but combatants nonetheless. Second, we were forced to address the necessity of relying on evidence without a complete picture of how it was obtained; evidence that might be obscured by the fog of war, derived from battlefield intelligence, from classified sources, or even through unknown circumstances. Lastly, we were required by our constitutional responsibilities to err on the side of protecting the American people.…”