Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia was among six U.S. senators who introduced legislation on Wednesday to keep Guantanamo Bay open for terror-suspect detention.
Chambliss joined fellow Republicans Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Scott Brown of Massachusetts and Marco Rubio of Florida, and Connecticut independent Joe Lieberman in efforts to block closure of the controversial prison. They cited events leading to the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden as justification.
“The events of last week underscore the importance of information we gain from detainees, particularly those at Guantanamo Bay,” Chambliss said in a statement.
No action was taken on the Senate floor on Wednesday other than some brief discussion of SB 944, the "Detaining Terrorists to Secure America Act," senate staff said.
On May 1, President Barack Obama authorized a strike force to attack bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, leaving bin Laden and four others dead. Bin Laden claimed responsibility for the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which killed more than 3,000 Americans in New York City, Washington and rural Pennsylvania.
The Obama administration credited intelligence gathered from detainees at Guantanamo for pinpointing bin Laden's location.
Last week, however, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said the government would eventually stop using the American military base in Cuba as a prison for foreigners suspected of terrorism.
Chambliss, the ranking Republican member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, suggested the operation to eliminate bin Laden couldn't have happened without information obtained at Guantanamo. He said America's options were limited.
“For months, we have been asking administration officials where we could hold detainees we may capture," Chambliss said. "This legislation provides an answer and gives us the chance to gather actionable intelligence to keep our country safe. Moreover, as recidivism rates are more than 25 percent, we cannot afford to let more dangerous detainees return to the fight.”
But ACLU legislative counsel Chris Anders pointed to a string of detainee abuses in the early years of the base, and said maintaining the prison was the wrong thing to do.
"Guantanamo has been a complete failure and has jeopardized America’s security rather than enhanced it," Anders said. "Putting the U.S. military in the role of being prison wardens for terrorists is a bad idea."
The bill also would prohibit the transfer of foreign terror detainees to prisons inside the American borders. A similar bill was introduced last week in the House, authorizing the U.S. to pursue suspected terrorists in other countries.
"The bottom line is that Guantanamo is still open today and will remain open for years to come," Lieberman said in a statement. "The sooner we -- Republicans, Democrats and Independents -- recognize that in law, the sooner we can turn our attention to taking action that is focused on one goal: using this now state-of-the-art detention facility to keep our country safe.”
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