When asked about our policy of releasing prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (DINO-CA) agrees with Rep. Pete Hoekstra that we should not be releasing anyone to a country with an al Qaeda presence.
SCHIEFFER: Dianne Feinstein , what about that, that we shouldn’t release anybody to a country where there’s an Al Qaida presence? Do you go along with that?
FEINSTEIN: Yes, I tend to agree with that, actually. And if you look at Yemen-- and we’re taking a good look at Yemen-- what you see is I think at least 24 or 28 are confirmed returns to the battlefield in Yemen. And there are a number of suspected.
If you combine the suspected and the confirmed, the number I have is 74 detainees have gone back into the fight. And I think that’s bad.
And here’s the reason. They come out of Gitmo and they are heroes in this world. This world is the only world that’s going to really be accepting of them. Therefore, the tendency is to go back. And I think the Gitmo experience is not one that leads itself to rehabilitation, candidly. I think it leads to....
SCHIEFFER: Let me -- let me ask, do you think that maybe we just ought to keep Gitmo open for a while and not release anybody that’s down there, or at least put them in some other place but not release them?
FEINSTEIN: Well, I agree with those that have said that Guantanamo has really been a recruiting tool for Al Qaida, that it has not been helpful to us. And I think that, you know, the Senate is now engaged in a huge study on the interrogation and detention of the some 33 high-value detainees. What happened to them, how were they treated? What success did the interrogation have? Were the laws followed? That kind of thing. And we should have the report completed within the next three months or so.
SCHIEFFER: All right.
FEINSTEIN: However, the problem is that this is very difficult. And I happen to know the prison system rather well, so I believe the safety of America is assured in the federal prison system. I don’t worry about the safety element.
SCHIEFFER: It sounds to me like what you’re saying here, Senator Feinstein, is that we ought to be very, very careful about releasing anybody right now. That seems to me your (inaudible).
FEINSTEIN: I think right now, until we sort this out, the answer is yes.
SCHIEFFER: All right. I want to thank both of you for being with us this morning. Very enlightening discussion.
Gee Senator, who would have ever thought torturing people would make them want to come back and kill us later? The Gitmo experience--isn't that lovely?
