Guantanamo Bay Oversight

19 June 2006

Sunday on Face the Nation you said that we need to keep Guantanamo open and reform it. I agree, but that is going to mean taking responsibility and doing more scrutiny through the oversight process. It also means allowing outside groups in to see what goes on there.

Appearantly the guards believe that they can do anything they want becaue the detainees cannot sue over their treatment. We need to revisit the restrictions that were placed on going to court. It was fine to restrict what court could entertain the case, but we were perhaps to restrictive in what constituted a case. It would be smart to review and amend this law. John McCain, your friend, is going to be blamed for this because he is the presidential candidate. People will long forget about you being one of the sponsors. It seems, that though you never intended it to be this way, this amendment helped the president stab Mr. McCain in the back becasue it means that they can get away with almost anything becasue the detainees have no recourse. This is not who we are as a country.

If we are not going to allow court challenges of Guantanamo detainees than Senators need to conduct more vigorous oversight to make sure that there is no cruel and inhumane treatment. It is not enough to rely on the McCain amendment to regulate behavior. lawsuits and oversight are the way to regulate the behavior of the guards. There should be investigations as oon as abuses are reported that include delegation visists.

We cannot allow this to go on the way it is and the only way to change it is vigorous oversight that tracks down and asks hard questions about the situation at that prison.

Thank you for your time.