Category Archives: Military

Hillary’s Libya Interim Govt Failed Security Standards

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The civil war in Libya was raging as Hillary had some clandestine team stitch together some interim players to later become the Transitional National Council to run the country’s government. Conditions were do bad that Ambassador Stevens was hours from bailing out of the country 17 months before his ultimate death.

This speaks to conditions that were not only known to the State Department, but to AFRICOM as well and yet no boosts in security personnel was authorized all for the sake of showing control of diplomatic objectives and a light footprint. AFRICOM, more than once offered elevated security and military assistance to State for Libya, yet it was denied by State.

Ambassador killed in Benghazi attack considered leaving Libya in April 2011, emails reveal

FNC: Seventeen months before he was killed in the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, Ambassador Chris Stevens was seriously considering leaving the country as its civil war widened.

The ambassador’s concerns are reflected in emails sent to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s inner circle. The emails were released by the State Department Monday as part of the 14th and final batch of messages from Clinton’s private server.

One email in particular, dated April 10, 2011, relays Stevens’ safety concerns to the State Department. It was sent by a State Department official named Timmy Davis to several key Clinton aides, including Jake Sullivan, now the top foreign policy adviser on Clinton’s presidential campaign, and Huma Abedin.

The message, with the subject line “Stevens update” reads, in part, “The situation in Ajdabiyah [a town approximately 90 miles southeast of Benghazi] has worsened to the point where Stevens is considering departure from Benghazi. The envoy’s delegation is currently doing a phased checkout (paying the hotel bills, moving some comms to the boat, etc) … He will wait 2-3 more hours, then revisit the decision on departure.”

The message from Davis indicates there is heavy sniper fire and shelling in Ajdabiyah. According to the message, Stevens is apparently trying to see if “this is an irreversible situation. Departure would send a significant political signal” that the U.S. had lost confidence in Libya’s Transitional National Council, which oversaw the rebel forces fighting to overthrow dictator Muammar Qaddafi.

Davis’ message was forwarded to Clinton by Abedin. The secretary of state’s response is not known.

The latest email release also indicates that State Department official Wendy Sherman sent at least one classified email to Clinton in August 2012. The email, which Sherman sent with the attached message, “I don’t usually forward emails such as below”, dealt with Egyptian troop movements.

Sherman, who left the State Department this past October, led the U.S. delegation at last summer’s nuclear talks with Iran. Fox News previously reported that Sherman appears in a 2013 State Department video saying that in the interest of speed, Clinton and her aides shared information that “would never be on an unclassified system” normally.

Another revelation in the latest email dump is that Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., urged Clinton to approve the showing of Usama bin Laden’s death photos to members of Congress after the Al Qaeda leader was killed by Navy SEALs in May 2011.

In an email to Clinton, Blumenthal argued that the photos would provide a boost to President Obama’s political capital ahead of that summer’s lengthy debt ceiling fight with the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

“Having the members file through [a special secure room] will provide testimony to the President’s feat,” Blumenthal wrote in the May 5, 2011 message. “They will be not only be acknowledging but also enhancing his power. They will in effect become liegemen bowing before him, but not in any way they will resent or will protest. They will serve as witnesses to the magnitude of what he has done.”

Members of Senate and House committees who deal with intelligence and military matters were later invited to view the photos, but they have not been made public.

State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters Monday that one additional email between Clinton and Obama was withheld from the final batch of messages, bringing the total number of such messages to 19.

Kirby also said that 52,000 pages of emails, not 55,000 as previously stated, have been released to the public from Clinton’s private server, which was kept in her bathroom in her Chappaqua, N.Y. home. Kirby said 55,000 was a “colloquial” term used previously by the State Department and the real number of pages is between 52 or 53,000.

More Benghazi Witnesses and Emails

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Select Committee Announces Scheduled Testimony of Additional Witnesses

February 25, 2016
 
Press Release

Washington, D.C. — Select Committee on Benghazi Chairman Trey Gowdy (SC-04) released the following statement announcing the upcoming private testimony of additional witnesses:

“Our committee continues to break an immense amount of new ground as we compile the most comprehensive accounting of what happened before, during and after the terrorist attacks in Benghazi. As we approach our 80th witness interview and work to release our report and recommendations before summer, it’s time for the administration to turn over the records this committee requested nearly a year ago. The American people and the families of the victims deserve the truth, and I’m confident that the value and fairness of our investigation will be abundantly clear to everyone when they see the report for themselves.”

The following witnesses will be questioned in private and bring the total number of witnesses interviewed to 79, including 62 who had never before been interviewed by a congressional committee (these are denoted with asterisks). This schedule is not comprehensive and is subject to change.

 

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Witness:  Gentry Smith, former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Countermeasures within the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security*

 

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Witness: An eyewitness to the attacks from the national security community

 

Thursday, March 3, 2016

Witness: James “Sandy” Winnefeld, Jr., former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff*

 

Friday, March 4, 2016

Witness: Susan Curley, Managing Director of the State Department’s Office of Management Policy, Rightsizing and Innovation*

***

Reminder: Just last week ~

State Department Turns Over 1,600 Newly-Discovered Clinton Documents to Benghazi Committee

Existence of documents was revealed in unrelated lawsuit

FreeBeacon: The State Department turned over 1,600 pages of previously undisclosed documents related to Hillary Clinton and Libya to the House Benghazi committee on Friday, a month after it revealed the existence of the documents in an unrelated court case.

The House Select Committee on Benghazi announced it received the records on Friday, adding that the State Department has yet to fully comply with document requests the committee made nearly a year ago.

“Today the State Department turned over more than 1,600 pages of new documents related to former Secretary Clinton and Libya,” the committee said. “The State [Department] claimed in a January 8th court filing that it only recently discovered these new documents from the Office of the Secretary.”

In January, the State Department disclosed in a court filing that it had recently discovered “thousands” of new documents related to Clinton’s tenure and the Benghazi attack. The filing was in response to a lawsuit by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, which has been seeking records from Clinton’s time at the State Department.

The documents may be released in response to public records requests, but the copies received by the Benghazi committee are not redacted in regard to Libya and Benghazi issues.

The records come from the Office of the Secretary, which would likely include Clinton’s Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, top aide Huma Abedin, and Clinton’s deputy chief of staff and scheduler.

The Benghazi committee announced last week that it had conducted its 75th interview as part of its investigation into the 2012 Benghazi attack, interviewing former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Matt Olsen. The committee recently interviewed Patrick Kennedy, the under secretary of state and a key member of Clinton’s inner circle. Most of the committee’s interviews have been conducted privately.

“While there are still witnesses to talk to and documents to review, these significant breakthroughs are big wins that will help the committee complete the most comprehensive investigation into what happened before, during and after the Benghazi terrorist attacks, and release a report as soon as possible,” committee chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy (R., S.C.) said in a statement announcing the panel’s progress last week.

The Letter: Declassified but Somewhat Redacted

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ODNI & DOJ Announce the Release of a Previously Classified Letter from Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Yoo to former FISC Presiding Judge Kollar-Kotelly

February 29, 2016

The Letter

ODNI: The Department of Justice has released today in redacted form a previously classified 2002 letter from former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo of the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel addressed to former Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Presiding Judge, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.

The letter was designed to address certain questions that Judge Kollar-Kotelly raised during her first briefing on May 17, 2002, concerning certain collection activities authorized by President George W. Bush shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, referred to as the President’s Surveillance Program.  As described in the publicly released Inspectors General reports concerning the PSP dated July 10, 2009 (published April 25, 2015 and September 21, 2015), Judge Kollar-Kotelly was permitted to read the letter, but was not authorized to retain a copy or take notes. The 2002 letter purports to generally outline the scope of the President’s legal authority to conduct possible electronic surveillance techniques after the attacks of September 11, 2001. Beginning in 2004, the Department of Justice thoroughly reexamined the factual underpinnings and legal analysis for the PSP culminating in a legal opinion issued by the Office of Legal Counsel on May 6, 2004. (That opinion is also publicly available in redacted form)

Additional Background

As previously released in the IC on the Record posting of December 21, 2013, President Bush authorized the NSA, via a series of classified authorizations beginning in October 2001, to collect three “baskets” of information, including: (1) the contents of certain international communications (which was later referred to as the Terrorist Surveillance Program); and the bulk collection of non-content (2) telephony and (3) Internet metadata, subject to various conditions. NSA’s content interception activities under the TSP were limited to the acquisition of specific international communication (i.e., to or from the United States) involving persons reasonably believed to be associated with al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist organizations. Over time, these presidentially-authorized activities were transitioned to the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The collection of communications pursuant to the TSP ended in 2007, and the Government transitioned this collection to be undertaken pursuant to FISA authority and orders of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Later, in August 2007, Congress enacted the Protect America Act as temporary authority to provide for the acquisition of certain communication content. The PAA, which expired in February 2008, was replaced by the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which was enacted in July 2008 and remains in effect.

Today, content collection targeting non-U.S. persons reasonably believed to be located overseas for foreign intelligence purposes is conducted pursuant to section 702 of FISA.  No U.S. person or person located in the United States may be intentionally targeted pursuant to section 702. The bulk collection of Internet metadata under the PSP was transitioned to the authority of the FISA in July 2004 (and ceased in December 2011, when the U.S. Government decided to not seek reauthorization from the FISC).The bulk collection of telephony metadata under the PSP was transitioned to the authority of the FISA in May 2006. In November 2015, the USA FREEDOM Act ended the NSA’s collection of telephone metadata in bulk, and provided a new mechanism for the Government to obtain the targeted production of call detail records relating to authorized investigations to protect against international terrorism through applications to the FISC.

The transition of PSP activities to authority of the FISA is described in greater and more specific detail in documents previously disclosed in IC on the Record.

***

As noted by the Bush White House Archives:

Fact Sheet: President Bush Has Kept America Safe

President Bush Fundamentally Reshaped Our Strategy To Protect The American People

“Because of … the efforts of many across all levels of government, we have not suffered another attack on our soil since September the 11th, 2001.”

President George W. Bush (March 8, 2008)

On December 17, President Bush visited the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and discussed efforts to protect the security and liberty of the American people.  Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, President Bush took the fight to the enemy to defeat the terrorists and protect America.  The President deployed all elements of national power to combat terrorism, which had previously been considered primarily a “law enforcement” issue.  He transformed our military and strengthened our national security institutions to wage the War on Terror and secure our homeland.  The President also made missile defense operational and advanced counterproliferation efforts to help prevent our enemies from threatening us, and our allies, with weapons of mass destruction.

Secured the Homeland 

  • Protected our Nation and prevented another attack on U.S. soil for more than seven years, modernized our national security institutions and tools of war, and bolstered our homeland security.  Under the President’s watch, numerous terrorist attacks have been prevented in the United States.  These include:
    • An attempt to bomb fuel tanks at JFK airport;
    • A plot to blow up airliners bound for the East Coast;
    • A plan to destroy the tallest skyscraper in Los Angeles;
    • A plot by six al Qaeda inspired individuals to kill soldiers at Fort Dix Army Base in New Jersey;
    • A plan to attack a Chicago-area shopping mall using grenades; and
    • A plot to attack the Sears Tower in Chicago.
  • Arrested and convicted more than two dozen terrorists and their supporters in America since 9/11.
  • Froze the financial assets in the United States of hundreds of individuals and entities linked to terrorism and proliferation.
  • Doubled the Border Patrol to more than 18,000 agents, equipped the Border Patrol with better technology and new infrastructure, and effectively ended the process of catch and release at the border.  Increased border security and immigration enforcement funding by more than 160 percent and constructed hundreds of miles of fencing and vehicle barriers.
  • Instituted a process to screen every commercial air passenger in the country, launched credentialing initiatives to better identify passengers, and expanded the Federal Air Marshal Program.  Replaced the multiple watchlists that were in place prior to 9/11 with a single, consolidated watchlist, and incorporated biometrics in screening and identifying individuals entering our country.  Created US-VISIT to screen foreign travelers and prevent terrorists from entering America.  Required secure identification at our ports of entry to better monitor individuals entering the United States.
  • Invested more than $38 billion in public health and medical systems, created a biothreat air monitoring system, and developed a national strategy and international partnership on avian and pandemic flu.
‘History – assuming it is written by free men and women not intimidated into silence by the fear of attracting the terrorists’ notice – will be exceedingly kind to this president.’

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Sept. 16, 2007)

Waged the Global War on Terror

  • Removed the Taliban from power and brought freedom to the 25 million people of Afghanistan.
  • Freed 25 million Iraqis from the rule of Saddam Hussein, a dictator who murdered his own people, invaded his neighbors, and repeatedly defied United Nations resolutions.
  • Captured or killed hundreds of al Qaeda leaders and operatives in more than two dozen countries with the help of partner nations.  September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is in U.S. custody and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, was killed in 2006.  Removed al Qaeda’s safe-haven in Afghanistan and crippled al Qaeda in Iraq, including defeating al Qaeda in its former stronghold of Anbar Province.

Transformed Our Approach to Combating Terrorism After the 9/11 Attacks

  • Increased the size of our ground forces and number of unmanned aerial vehicles and strengthened special operations forces by increasing resources, manpower, and capabilities.  Increased the Defense Department’s base budget more than 70 percent since 2001, including increased funding for military pay and benefits, research, and development.  Started moving American forces from Cold War garrisons in Europe and Asia so they can deploy more quickly to any region of the world.  Modernized and transformed the National Guard from a strategic reserve to an operational reserve.
  • Forged a new, comprehensive cybersecurity policy to improve the security of Federal government and military computer systems and made protecting these systems a national priority.
  • Improved cargo screening and security at U.S. ports and increased containerized cargo screening overseas.
  • Established a more unified, collaborative intelligence community under the leadership of a Director of National Intelligence to ensure information is shared among intelligence and law enforcement professionals so they have the information they need to protect the American people while respecting the legal rights of all U.S. persons, including freedoms, civil liberties, and privacy rights guaranteed by Federal law.
  • Consolidated 22 agencies and 180,000 employees under a new agency, the Department of Homeland Security, to foster a comprehensive, coordinated approach to protecting our country.
  • Advocated for and signed into law the USA PATRIOT Act, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, and a modernization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
  • Shifted the FBI’s focus from investigating terrorist attacks to preventing them.  Created the National Security Branch at the FBI, which combines the FBI’s counterterrorism, counterintelligence, intelligence, and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) elements under the leadership of a senior FBI official.
  • Created the Terrorist Screening Center and the National Security Division at the Department of Justice.

Invigorated International Alliances And Partnerships To Make America Safer And More Secure

  • Partnered with nations in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and the Western Hemisphere on intelligence sharing and law enforcement coordination to break up terrorist networks and bring terrorists to justice.
  • Transformed NATO to face 21st century threats, including strengthening the Alliance’s capabilities against WMD and cyber attacks, while leading the international military effort in Afghanistan.
  • Established the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) and other multilateral coalitions to stop WMD proliferation and strengthen our ability to locate and secure nuclear and radiological materials around the world.  Dismantled and prevented the reconstitution of the A.Q. Khan proliferation network, an extensive, international network that had spread sensitive nuclear technology and capability to Iran, Libya, and North Korea.
  • Worked with European partners to limit Iran’s ability to develop weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles and finance terrorism, and initiated targeted sanctions against Iran’s Quds Force.  Gathered support for and won passage of three Chapter VII United Nations Security Council resolutions that impose sanctions on Iran and require it to suspend its uranium enrichment and other proliferation-sensitive nuclear activities.
  • Established the Six Party Talks framework in partnership with China, South Korea, Japan, and Russia.  Obtained a commitment from North Korea to abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs.  Since November 2007, USG experts have supervised North Korea’s activities to disable its plutonium production capability.
  • Persuaded Libya to disclose and dismantle all aspects of its WMD and advanced missile programs, renounce terrorism, and accept responsibility for prior acts of terror.  Normalized our relations with Libya as a result.
  • Signed agreements for missile defense sites in the Czech Republic and Poland to help protect America and its allies from the threat of WMD delivered by ballistic missiles.  Obtained NATO endorsement of plans to deploy missile defense assets in Europe.

al Qaeda Making a Comeback

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Al Qaeda Makes a Comeback

Intelligence analysts paid close attention last month when al Qaeda’s master bombmaker, Ibrahim al Asiri — whose name tops U.S. kill lists — issued an audiotape from his hiding place.

NBC: The content was the usual anti-Saudi Arabian screed, sprinkled with threats against America — but the news was Asiri’s sudden willingness to join the terror group’s PR campaign. For years, the man who tried to take down planes with underwear and parcel bombs had laid low, as al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate tried to protect him from U.S. drone strikes.

In 2016, however, a resurgent al Qaeda is emerging from the shadows. While ISIS has been soaking up headlines, its older sibling has been launching attacks and grabbing territory too, and U.S. intelligence officials tell NBC News they are increasingly concerned the older terror group is poised to build on its achievements.

“Al Qaeda affiliates are positioned to make gains in 2016,” James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, warned the House Intelligence Committee Thursday.

Because of those far-flung affiliates, al Qaeda “remains a serious threat to U.S. interests worldwide,” Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told Congress recently.

After seizing a large segment of Iraq and Syria, beheading Western hostages on camera and slaughtering civilians in the heart of Paris, ISIS has eclipsed its extremist rival as the biggest brand in global jihad.

But U.S. officials tell NBC News that al Qaeda — though its core in Pakistan has been degraded by years of CIA drone strikes — is now experiencing renewed strength through its affiliates, led by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen and the Nusra Front in Syria. Clapper called the two groups al Qaeda’s “most capable” affiliates in his House testimony Thursday.

Both branches have expanded their territorial holdings over the last year amid civil wars. Russian air strikes against the Nusra Front, and CIA drone attacks on AQAP leaders, have set them back, but have not come close to destroying them.

Al Qaeda has not managed to attack a Western target recently, but it continues to inspire plots. There is no evidence December’s mass shooting in San Bernardino, California was directed by al Qaeda, but Syed Rizwan Farook, who carried out the attack with his wife Tashfeen Malik, appears to have been radicalized by al Qaeda long before the rise of ISIS. He was a consumer of videos by al Qaeda’s Somalia affiliate and the AQAP preacher Anwar al Awlaki, court records show.

Al Qaeda attacks on hotels in Burkina Faso in January and Mali in November, which together killed dozens of people, appeared to affirm the threat posed by the terror group’s Saharan branch, al Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb, or AQIM.

Stewart added that intelligence officials are also “concerned al Qaeda could reestablish a significant presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, if regional counterterrorism pressure deceases.”

In Yemen, AQAP has benefitted from the power vacuum created by the Houthi rebels’ uprising, and the air war on the Houthis by Saudi Arabia.

AQAP last April seized the city of Mukalla, the capital of Hadramout province and a port city with a population of some 300,000. It looted a bank of more than $1 million in cash, U.S. officials said, and released 300 inmates from jail.

Since then, the group has expanded its territory in the provinces of Abyan and Shabwa, its traditional strongholds.

“AQAP’s expansion is unchecked because there is no one on the ground to put any pressure on the organization,” noted Geoffrey Johnsen, a Yemen expert. “What is left of Yemen’s military is too busy fighting other enemies to engage AQAP, and the Saudis are focused on rolling back the Houthis. In the midst of Yemen’s civil war, AQAP is able to pursue more territory and to plot, plan, and launch attacks.”

The CIA is watching closely. Jalal Bala’idi, a prominent AQAP field commander, was killed in an agency drone strike in February.

AQAP’s seizures of territory have “allowed them to operate more openly, have access to a port, and have access to other kinds of infrastructure that has certainly benefitted them,” a U.S. intelligence official told NBC News. At the same time, he said, the U.S. has “managed to remove many significant figures from the battlefield and keep AQAP somewhat at bay.”

Al Qaida’s Syrian affiliate gets less public attention than others. Western media reporting sometimes refers to the Nusra front as a Syrian rebel group, without mentioning that it’s part of the global terrorism organization.

But Nusra is as well-organized and disciplined as any al Qaeda affiliate, U.S. intelligence officials say. Although it is now focused on defeating Assad, its battle tested fighters could pose a risk to the West in the years ahead.

“Jabhat al Nusra is a core component of the al Qaeda network and probably poses the most dangerous threat to the U.S. from al Qaeda in the coming years,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said in a recent report. “Al Qaeda is pursuing phased, gradual, and sophisticated strategies that favor letting ISIS attract the attention — and attacks — of the West while it builds the human infrastructure to support and sustain major gains in the future and for the long term.”

U.S. air strikes have set back a group of al Qaeda operatives in Syria known as the Khorasan Group, which embedded with Nusra while plotting attacks against the West, intelligence officials say.

But Nusra has trained a core of elite fighters, the ISW says. Georgetown terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman says Nusra has achieved Osama bin Laden’s goal of rebranding al Qaeda and moving away from a name that had lost its luster.

The group’s leader, Abu Mohammad al Julani, is hardly a household name in the West, but he is respected by his adversaries in American intelligence. He is believed to have been detained by the U.S. military in Iraq and released in 2008.

Hoffman, who served as the CIA’s Scholar-in-Residence for Counterterrorism, calls Nusra “even more dangerous and capable than ISIS.”

Al Qaeda is watching ISIS “take all the heat and absorb all the blows while al Qaeda quietly re-builds its military strength,” he said.

SecDef on Gitmo and Detainees Too Dangerous

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A partial closing? An Executive Order to overrule the law and Congress? There are no more enemy combatants anywhere in the world? Where would a new president send enemy combatants? What about the next Secretary of Defense?

Thoughts?

Ash Carter: There Are Gitmo Detainees so Dangerous That it Is Not Safe to Transfer Them

FreeBeacon: Defense Secretary Ash Carter told reporters on Monday there are detainees at the Guantanamo Bay military prison who are so dangerous that it would not be safe to transfer them outside the care of the United States.

Carter and President Obama have drawn up a plan to move many of the remaining 91 detainees into the custody of foreign governments. Detainees not cleared for transfer overseas—those who Carter describes as too dangerous to go elsewhere—would be moved stateside in an effort to close the detention facility.

Moving Detainees From Gitmo To U.S. Is Reckless and Dangerous

February 23, 2016

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Representative Darrell Issa (R-Ca.) issued the following statement on the President’s plan to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and relocate some of the most dangerous detainees into the United States:

“President Obama is once again proving his willingness to set aside the rule of law to pursue his own reckless agenda no matter the consequences for the American people. The plan announced today would take detainees deemed too dangerous to transfer to other countries and bring them right into our own backyards. It risks the lives and safety of American citizens and it’s not what the people expect of our commander-in-chief.”

“The administration has already let nearly 150 detainees go free, only to see many of them return to terrorist groups and rejoin the fight against us. Instead of focusing on finding new homes for terrorists, the President should refocus his efforts on winning the War on Terror and bringing an end to the extremist groups seeking to do us harm.”

 

 

Carter made his comment while holding a press briefing at the Pentagon along with Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

A reporter asked Carter if the United States is thinking of transferring the Guantanamo Bay naval base back to the Cuban government, which he denied while drawing a distinction between the naval base and the detention facility.

“The base is separate from the detention facility,” Carter said in response. “The base is in a strategic location. We’ve had it for a long time. It’s important to us, and we intend to hold onto it.”

Carter then turned his attention to the detention center within the naval base, which he said is the specific focus of the Obama administration’ closure plan.

“With respect to the detention facility at [Guantanamo], which is what the president was speaking about last week … there are people in the Guantanamo Bay detention facility whom it is not safe to transfer to any other—they have to stay in U.S. detention,” Carter said. “Safety is the top priority for me, the chairman, and for the president.”

Carter then said that because some detainees are too dangerous to release, there needs to be an alternate facility in the U.S. for these individuals to go if Guantanamo is closed, which is at the heart of Obama’s proposal.

The Pentagon is reportedly looking at send prisoners to either the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colo., the military prison in Leavenworth, Kansas, or the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, S.C.

One problem for the administration, however, is that it is currently illegal to move Guantanamo detainees to U.S. soil. Carter said at Monday’s briefing that Congress must change the law for the closure plan to go into effect.

“[Obama’s Guantanamo plan] can’t be done unless Congress acts, which means Congress has to support the idea that it would be good to move this facility and the detainees to the United States … it’s good if it can be done, but it can’t be done under current law. The law would have to be changed. That’s the reason we would put the proposal in front of Congress,” Carter said.

This may prove difficult for the administration, as a bipartisan majority in both houses of Congress disapprove of closing Guantanamo and transferring detainees to the U.S.

Carter reaffirmed his support for the president’s plan, citing its fiscal benefits—U.S. officials say it would save the government between $65 million and $85 million per year—and benefits for U.S. military personnel charged with duty at Guantanamo. He said the plan is good “on balance” and that he does not want to pass the Guantanamo issue to the next president and Defense Secretary if possible.

The president has long maintained that Guantanamo should be closed because the detention facility is not in keeping with American values and serves as a recruiting tool for terrorists.

Those who want Guantanamo to remain open argue that the facility is necessary to hold enemy combatants who are members of jihadist groups like al Qaeda to keep them off the battlefield and gather intelligence. They cite the reportedly exceptional treatment detainees receive at the facility, which military leaders have detailed to reporters, as well as experts who say that Guantanamo plays a minimal role in jihadist propaganda.

The recidivism rate for Guantanamo detainees who are released and return to terrorist activity is about 30 percent, according to experts.

A recent example that garnered attention was Ibrahim al Qosi, a former aide to Osama bin Laden who was sent to Guantanamo in 2002 and released 10 years later. Al Qosi resurfaced this month as a senior member of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the terror group’s most dangerous branch.

When asked about al Qosi’s return to jihadist activity at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last week, Secretary of State John Kerry lamented that “he’s not supposed to be doing that.”

It is important to understand the term enemy combatant, lawful and unlawful as defined the Geneva Convention. You can read the 10 items here.