tolls from the terrorists they targeted dwarfed estimates of civilian kauscasualties. he made a renewed push to close guantanamo bay and asked congress to lift restrictions from gitmo and speed up the process of trials and military commissions and transferring detainees. a lot to chew on and we re going to start with congressman tho thornberry, a member of the house armed services and intelligence. congressman, what is your reaction? well, i thought it was interesting. when he was interrupted and went off-script the president said he s these are serious issues we can t gloss over and yet he s also seemed to say in the speech that we can finish defeating al qaeda and get back to a pre- 9/11 sort of mentality. well, that s kind of glossing over, i think, a lot of the details. even on guantanamo, he said if we are just committed to cloeing it we can work out the details later and what happens to people there and so forth. that s kind of glossing over what s been the hold-up.
imprison 166 people. almost a million dollars per prison. the department of defenseers mates that weust spend another $200 million to keep gitmo open at a time when we re cutting investments in education, in research here at home, and when the pentagon is struggling with sequestering budget cuts. as president i have tried to close gitmo. i transferred 67 detainees to other countries. before congress imposed restrictions to effectively prevent us from either transferring detainees to other countries or imprisoning them here in the united states. these restrictions maybe no sense. after all, under president bush, some 530 detainees were transferred from gitmo with congress support.
at of again as part of the process of restoring afghan sovereignty. so we bring war of detention to an end and prosecute terrorists wherever we can. the glaring exception to this time attention approach is the detention center at again tguan bay. the original premise of opening gitmo that detainees would not be able to challenge their detention was found unconstitutional five years ago. in the meantime, gitmo has become a symbol around the world for an america that flouts the rule of law. our allies won t cooperate with us if they think a terrorist will end up in gitmo. during a time of budget cuts we spent $150 million each year to
get a response from a republican in house intelligence committee. i want to just before we go to them give you a quick recap of what we ve been listening to as president obama laid out his address. he started off talking a great grate deal about the tensions of living in a free society while also trying to keep the country safe. he discussed many aspects of national security including two of his administration s most controversial policies using unmanned predator drones to at t tack suspected terrorists in countries and to close guantanamo bay. almost as if she were a human metaphor in national security and freedoms we enjoy at this country, at several points president obama was interrupted by a protester, a woman demanding the immediate closure of gitmo. the president was try took patient. he went off script and said her voice was worth listening to even if he disagreed with her
you being able to speak but also you listening. and me being able to speak. all right? thank you. now, even after we take these steps one issue will remain, just how to deal with those gitmo detainees who we know have participated in dangerous plots or attacks but who cannot be prosecuted, for example, because the evidence against them has been compromised or is inadmissible in a court of law. but once we commit to a process of closing gitmo, i am confident that this legacy problem can be resolved consistent with the rule of law. i know the politics are hard. but history will cast a harsh judgment on this aspect of our