GOP lawmakers say closing Gitmo threatens national security

By Charles Hoskinson, Charles Hoskinson

Published December 20, 2015

The U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, is one of several places Pentagon officials are considering as a new home for detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, so President Obama can keep his pledge to close the military prison there.

That's where Republican Reps. Mike Pompeo and Lynn Jenkins will be Friday, seeking to hear from constituents on the plan, and to convince them that closing Guantanamo is a threat to national security.

"Such a move is a naked attempt, at the eleventh hour, to fulfill a campaign promise to the most radical elements of his liberal base, and is totally divorced from the security threats that necessitated the creation of Guantanamo in the first place," Pompeo said in a statement. "President Obama needs to stop playing politics and focus on doing what is best for our national security: keeping these terrorists at Guantanamo and out of America."

The GOP case for keeping Guantanamo open was bolstered Thursday by a House Armed Services Committee report. It found that the administration was so eager to close the prison that it broke the law and misled Congress in the swap last year of five Taliban leaders for captured U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.