Political Quotes

“Madam President, I wish to bring the body's attention to a recent decision by the Obama administration to place the son-in-law of Osama bin Laden, Mr. Abu Ghaith--I think I am pronouncing the name correctly--into Federal district court in New York charged with conspiracy to kill American citizens. He has been presented to our criminal justice system. He is, in my view, the classic example of an enemy combatant. I will be, along with Senator Ayotte, writing the Attorney General asking for a rundown of how long he was interrogated before he was read his Miranda rights. I believe this is a classic example of a person of great intelligence value who should have been held as an enemy combatant at Guantanamo Bay for intelligence-gathering purposes as long as it took to get good intelligence. He, in my view, is a treasure trove of information about not only al-Qaida but maybe things going on in Iran. There is an allegation of his being held in Iran for a very long time as their houseguest, for lack of a better word. I fear greatly we are beginning to go back to the criminal justice model that preceded 9/11. The first time the World Trade Center was attacked, we had the Blind Sheik case and the prosecutors did a wonderful job of prosecuting the Blind Sheik and his conspirators in Federal court. But everybody at that time treated al-Qaida and terrorism as a criminal threat. After 9/11, we changed our model.…”