State Dept. Committed To Closing Gitmo Even Though 30 Percent Return To Terrorism

Video Transcript:

After President Obama released another 15 Gitmo prisoners, the State Department struggled to assure the public the prisoners will not return to terrorism.

MARK TONER: As we scale down Gitmo and hopefully one day close it all together, the detainees have been vetted through what is a very rigorous process, and I can assure you that it’s a very rigorous process. Is it 100 percent foolproof? Have there been no cases or zero cases of this happening? Well, no. There have been cases of it, but very few. I don’t know the percentage in front of me, but it’s incredibly small.

That’s actually terribly inaccurate and Lt. Col. Ralph Peters argues the percentage is actually 30 percent.

PETERS: And so up to a third of them have gone back to the battlefield. The government admits, I think it’s 17.4 percent are confirmed as having gone back to jihad. Another almost 13 percent are suspected of possibly having gone back which tells me, they’ve gone back. But even if it was only one who was released and blew up a bus load of school children or an American Army vehicle on convoy – even if it’s only one, it matters. When Obama came to office what you had left were the hardcore of the hardcore and now we’re down from 241 to 61 – 19 more plan to be released – this is about Obama establishing a legacy, a foreign policy, security legacy. And I’ll tell you, compare legacies – Lincoln freed the slaves, Obama freed the terrorists.

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