2. 64. Our road map begins with with the fax shutting down for the first time in 17 years. 800 federal workers furloughed. Merck cutting an additional 8,500 jobs, aiming to reduce annual operating costs by 2. 5 billion. All of that. Plus more and mad moneys big milestone tonight. First, the federal government has begun a Government Shutdown. 800,000 federal workers will be furloughed today with national parks, smithsonian, museums, most federal offices closing. We mentioned what gold is doing. Why how is the market trying to arbitrage this, jim . I think this is one of the crux of things. Europe is getting stronger, japan had some good things. Futures percolate, this morning they were up 8 and now theyve been cut in half. As theyve been cut in half people say this is a great opportunity again, ill sell again and buy lower. And up opening in the face, this, theres a lot of people who think is going to be resolved by friday. I was with my friend who say do not believe this is going to be
You have no basis we have no basis to prosecute them in federal court. I find these statements very difficult to accept, mr. Secretary, given the status that these particular individuals had before they were captured. It is hard to believe that these individuals in these positions within the taliban government had no role in attacks on americans. So could you, mr. Secretary, speak to this issue and explain to the people i represent and this committee and those of us who are all across this country asking these questions, why you believe the release of these men was appropriate and it does not pose a threat to our National Security . Congressman, i think i have answered the question and i think i addressed as you quoted from my testimony. Let me start again. We recognize, as i said in my testimony and i think the answers i have given this morning, that there are risks. There are always risks. There are going to be risks in a deal like this. We had to factor in every circumstance that we
Congressman, again, i will say when we close this place down and go into the classified, well go into every one of those specifics, but i would tell you this, you may have already read the mou which we sent up here yesterday, and well be glad to take you down into the subparagraph six of each one of those to get to your question. But to go beyond my testimony here, i dont want to do that and if its okay, well wait. Let me go back historically then and look at the history of qatar and what theyve done in receiving detainees. As you know, the first transfer to qatar was in 2008, and was that one considered a successful test case . I believe, and i just asked our general counsel if we just had one transfer. Is that right . To qatar . To my knowledge. So weve had one. I dont know all the history of that transfer, although my understanding is it wasnt particularly good generally. So whats changed . Again, i addressed this here this morning. First of all, you have a new em emir. Weve got mor
We never heard another briefing on that matter. And so when we passed that law, we felt that we did it for a good reason. The law didnt just state that we would be given a notice. It required that the department would provide numerous pieces of critical information, including how the risk posed by the detainee had been substantially mitigated, how the transfer is in the National Security interest of the United States, an assessment of the capacity, willingness, and past practices of the receiving country, along with the notice, along with several other pieces of information. And previous ndaas with the tape, and with the other things that went forth. And ive been told in a couple of different briefings now that somewhere, i think the final number given to us a couple days ago was somewhere between 80 and 90 people in the department of justice, the state department, the homeland security, i guess was one of them, and the department of defense, knew about this, 80 to 90 people. The only
We thought the conflict was over in iraq and we see that it is not. It continues to go on. Now, the second thing, i may have left a wrong impression when i was talking to the secretary saying that if you had given the same report that that probably would have just solved everything. We still have big concerns about the five. And i didnt mention that when we were briefed in november of 11 and january of 12 that there was real concern of members of congress that those five be released, in fact there was real opposition to it. And thats why we were real concerned that we werent told other than if wed reenter those negotiations youd be told and then we werent. So those are things that we really need to have clarified and worked through. Mr. Thornberry. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, id like to just begin with a brief additional observation on the notification issue. For the past several years, this committee has worked on a bipartisan basis to establish an oversight structure for