“Good information is the best protection for our country”
WASHINGTON, DC – New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte appeared before a breakfast meeting of The Ripon Society this past Tuesday morning to discuss not only how current White House detainment policy toward terrorists is jeopardizing national security, but why this year’s election is critical to making the Senate more productive next year.
“Harry Reid has turned the most deliberative body in the world into the ‘my way or the highway’ body,” Ayotte stated. “We need to get the Senate operating in the way it was intended to operate. And I can tell you one thing — if we take the majority, we will operate the Senate in the way it was intended to operate because I think that we all get frustrated about the divisive nature of politics here in Washington.”
“As I look at the state of play right now, I think that’s why this election is really important. We always say every election is so important. I actually want to look my constituents in the eye and say, ‘Yes, I have represented you in the United States Senate and I have shaped legislation. I had this amendment, we debated it, we may have won or lost this fight, but we were able to fight for it, for you, and for what matters to you.’ I think that’s a pretty big thing to have at stake in this election. It’s bigger than the Republican Party. It’s about the institution itself, and I care about this institution because it matters to our democracy.”
Amid the recent controversy over the Obama Administration’s prisoner swap for Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, Ayotte – the current Ranking Member on the Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness, who was elected to office in 2010 – stressed the importance of ensuring that we gather the intelligence we need to prevent future terrorist attacks and protect Americans.
“The best way we can protect our country is to know what the terrorists are planning and are up to. Good intelligence and knowing exactly what our enemy is planning against us and our allies is the way to prevent conflicts. It is the way that we are in a position to avoid attacks on our country and on our allies. Good information is the best protection for our country.”
“I support taking off the table the things that were used like torture, and I don’t think we should use those types of methods. That said, I do think that we should use traditional interrogation methods and take as long as we need to make sure that we have the information from people like Abu Khatallah to know not only what he did and what his involvement in the attack on our [Benghazi] consulate was, but what else Ansar Al-Shari’a has been involved in. What else they are planning against our assets perhaps in Libya and other locations? What other connections does he have to Al-Qaeda? Who else is he involved with?”
“As a former prosecutor, I’m all for the constitutional rights of defendants in this country. But that system was not designed to gather intelligence. It has a different purpose. When we try someone in a criminal court, our purpose is to seek justice for the crime for which they are charged. Yes, the police interview that individual when they are charged with murder or some other crime. But their job isn’t to find everything that they knew, or every connection that they’ve ever had. It’s a very, very different purpose. This Administration has melded those two together and put us in a place where we are less safe.”
Last month, together with Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Vice Chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, a provision in the Senate Armed Service Committee’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act was included to prohibit the Department of Defense from transferring, releasing, or assisting in the transfer or release of any Guantanamo detainee to Yemen for one year. Ayotte discussed this provision and what it would mean for the transferring of detainees.
“They are looking for ways to transfer people out of Guantanamo,” she warned. “Many of them are very dangerous, and are going to get back into the fight. The other issue we are trying to prohibit is the Administration transferring them to countries where we have previously transferred detainees and they have gotten back into the fight. Guess what? If you have a record of not being able to follow through to keep secure the detainees you said you could keep secure, we shouldn’t transfer them there. It’s pretty much common sense. But, the Administration opposes all of this because they are desperate to close Guantanamo. They don’t have an alternative plan. And in the end, this is about protecting our country.”
“There was a great op-ed yesterday in the Wall Street Journal where they rightly pointed out, that, essentially, this Administration has adopted the Bush policies,” Ayotte said. “They just do not want to admit it because they don’t want to send anyone to Guantanamo. But by putting these terrorists on ships, they are acknowledging that you can’t just transfer them into the civilian system because you’ve got to read them their Miranda Rights.
“They are coming up with these temporary places where they can put terrorists to try to interrogate them and gather information to protect the country — but it’s totally insufficient to put them on a ship. They should just come clean and say ‘You know what, the Bush Administration was right. If we can’t interrogate these individuals, we are not going to get the information we need to protect our country.’
“But again, I don’t think we will see any admissions like that by the Administration and we will continue to see people on ships instead of where they belong: in a secure detention facility that is in a permanent location where people can be interrogated fully so we know what they know before they are transferred to either the civilian system or the military commission system.
“This is the number one responsibility we owe to the American people when we capture a terrorist: make sure we gather the intelligence that a person has to prevent future attacks on this country. That is how we are going to prevent another 9/11. Intelligence is how we are going to do that. And when we lose opportunities, we are really not doing a service to the American people. In fact, for political reasons, I think we are not doing the right thing.”
In response to a question about our current status in Afghanistan, the senator lamented recent remarks from the President regarding our future timetable for departure from that country.
“After all of the sacrifice we have made for so long in Afghanistan,” she declared, “the Taliban is just going to wait us out. I think the recent prisoner transfer actually played into that mindset of the Taliban because five of their key people were part of that swap. It really plays into the narrative of the President announcing, ‘Here is exactly when we are going to get all the way out.’
“Even if you have the belief that this was the timetable on which you were going to get out of Afghanistan, do we really need to tell our enemy that? It’s ridiculous. It’s totally ridiculous, and there is nothing driving it other than politics. I think that after all the work we’ve done in Afghanistan, there is a real chance that we will risk the gains we have made there.”
Ayotte continued her criticism of the President’s foreign policy when asked to comment on U.S. involvement in Ukraine.
“The President has not followed through with what needs to be done in Ukraine,” she explained. “Why does it matter? I can’t believe that we are hesitant to give the Ukrainian military anti-tank, anti-aircraft, basic communication equipment, and basic small arms. They gave up their nuclear weapons under the Budapest Memorandum, which was an agreement between the United Kingdom, the United States, Russia, and Ukraine. They gave up their nuclear weapons for an agreement to respect the sovereignty of all the parties, and security assurances. Now, we won’t even give them basic military equipment. Who is ever going to give up their nuclear weapons again that has any bit of rational logic?”
To view the complete remarks of Senator Ayotte before The Ripon Society’s breakfast discussion Tuesday morning, please click on the link below:
The Ripon Society is a public policy organization that was founded in 1962 and takes its name from the town where the Republican Party was born in 1854 – Ripon, Wisconsin. One of the main goals of The Ripon Society is to promote the ideas and principles that have made America great and contributed to the GOP’s success. These ideas include keeping our nation secure, keeping taxes low and having a federal government that is smaller, smarter and more accountable to the people.