National Security

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
ON NATIONAL SECURITY,National Archives
Washington, D.C.
 ,10:28 A.M. EDT,THE PRESIDENT:  Good morning, everybody.  Please be seated.  Thank you all for being here.  Let me just acknowledge the presence of some of my outstanding Cabinet members and advisors.  We've got our Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.  We have our CIA Director Leon Panetta.  We have our Secretary of Defense William Gates; Secretary Napolitano of Department of Homeland Security; Attorney General Eric Holder; my National Security Advisor Jim Jones.  And I want to especially thank our Acting Archivist of the United States, Adrienne Thomas.,I also want to acknowledge several members of the House who have great interest in intelligence matters.  I want to thank Congressman Reyes, Congressman Hoekstra, Congressman King, as well as Congressman Thompson, for being here today.  Thank you so much.,These are extraordinary times for our country.  We're confronting a historic economic crisis.  We're fighting two wars.  We face a range of challenges that will define the way that Americans will live in the 21st century.  So there's no shortage of work to be done, or responsibilities to bear.,And we've begun to make progress.  Just this week, we've taken steps to protect American consumers and homeowners, and to reform our system of government contracting so that we better protect our people while spending our money more wisely.  (Applause.)  The -- it's a good bill.  (Laughter.)  The engines of our economy are slowly beginning to turn, and we're working towards historic reform on health care and on energy.  I want to say to the members of Congress, I welcome all the extraordinary work that has been done over these last four months on these and other issues.,In the midst of all these challenges, however, my single most important responsibility as President is to keep the American people safe.  It's the first thing that I think about when I wake up in the morning.  It's the last thing that I think about when I go to sleep at night.,And this responsibility is only magnified in an era when an extremist ideology threatens our people, and technology gives a handful of terrorists the potential to do us great harm.  We are less than eight years removed from the deadliest attack on American soil in our history.  We know that al Qaeda is actively planning to attack us again.  We know that this threat will be with us for a long time, and that we must use all elements of our power to defeat it.,Already, we've taken several steps to achieve that goal.  For the first time since 2002, we're providing the necessary resources and strategic direction to take the fight to the extremists who attacked us on 9/11 in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  We're investing in the 21st century military and intelligence capabilities that will allow us to stay one step ahead of a nimble enemy.  We have re-energized a global non-proliferation regime to deny the world's most dangerous people access to the world's deadliest weapons.  And we've launched an effort to secure all loose nuclear materials within four years.  We're better protecting our border, and increasing our preparedness for any future attack or natural disaster.  We're building new partnerships around the world to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its affiliates.  And we have renewed American diplomacy so that we once again have the strength and standing to truly lead the world.,These steps are all critical to keeping America secure.  But I believe with every fiber of my being that in the long run we also cannot keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values.  The documents that we hold in this very hall -- the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights -- these are not simply words written into aging parchment.  They are the foundation of liberty and justice in this country, and a light that shines for all who seek freedom, fairness, equality, and dignity around the world.,I stand here today as someone whose own life was made possible by these documents.  My father came to these shores in search of the promise that they offered.  My mother made me rise before dawn to learn their truths when I lived as a child in a foreign land.  My own American journey was paved by generations of citizens who gave meaning to those simple words -- "to form a more perfect union."  I've studied the Constitution as a student, I've taught it as a teacher, I've been bound by it as a lawyer and a legislator.  I took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution as Commander-in-Chief, and as a citizen, I know that we must never, ever, turn our back on its enduring principles for expedience sake.,I make this claim not simply as a matter of idealism.  We uphold our most cherished values not only because doing so is right, but because it strengthens our country and it keeps us safe.  Time and again, our values have been our best national security asset -- in war and peace; in times of ease and in eras of upheaval.#p#分页标题#e#,Fidelity to our values is the reason why the United States of America grew from a small string of colonies under the writ of an empire to the strongest nation in the world.,It's the reason why enemy soldiers have surrendered to us in battle, knowing they'd receive better treatment from America's Armed Forces than from their own government.,It's the reason why America has benefitted from strong alliances that amplified our power, and drawn a sharp, moral contrast with our adversaries.,It's the reason why we've been able to overpower the iron fist of fascism and outlast the iron curtain of communism, and enlist free nations and free peoples everywhere in the common cause and common effort of liberty.,From Europe to the Pacific, we've been the nation that has shut down torture chambers and replaced tyranny with the rule of law.  That is who we are.  And where terrorists offer only the injustice of disorder and destruction, America must demonstrate that our values and our institutions are more resilient than a hateful ideology.,After 9/11, we knew that we had entered a new era -- that enemies who did not abide by any law of war would present new challenges to our application of the law; that our government would need new tools to protect the American people, and that these tools would have to allow us to prevent attacks instead of simply prosecuting those who try to carry them out.,Unfortunately, faced with an uncertain threat, our government made a series of hasty decisions.  I believe that many of these decisions were motivated by a sincere desire to protect the American people.  But I also believe that all too often our government made decisions based on fear rather than foresight; that all too often our government trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions.  Instead of strategically applying our power and our principles, too often we set those principles aside as luxuries that we could no longer afford.  And during this season of fear, too many of us -- Democrats and Republicans, politicians, journalists, and citizens -- fell silent.,In other words, we went off course.  And this is not my assessment alone.  It was an assessment that was shared by the American people who nominated candidates for President from both major parties who, despite our many differences, called for a new approach -- one that rejected torture and one that recognized the imperative of closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay.,Now let me be clear:  We are indeed at war with al Qaeda and its affiliates.  We do need to update our institutions to deal with this threat.  But we must do so with an abiding confidence in the rule of law and due process; in checks and balances and accountability.  For reasons that I will explain, the decisions that were made over the last eight years established an ad hoc legal approach for fighting terrorism that was neither effective nor sustainable -- a framework that failed to rely on our legal traditions and time-tested institutions, and that failed to use our values as a compass.  And that's why I took several steps upon taking office to better protect the American people.,First, I banned the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques by the United States of America.  (Applause.),I know some have argued that brutal methods like waterboarding were necessary to keep us safe.  I could not disagree more.  As Commander-in-Chief, I see the intelligence.  I bear the responsibility for keeping this country safe.  And I categorically reject the assertion that these are the most effective means of interrogation.  (Applause.)  What's more, they undermine the rule of law.  They alienate us in the world.  They serve as a recruitment tool for terrorists, and increase the will of our enemies to fight us, while decreasing the will of others to work with America.  They risk the lives of our troops by making it less likely that others will surrender to them in battle, and more likely that Americans will be mistreated if they are captured.  In short, they did not advance our war and counterterrorism efforts -- they undermined them, and that is why I ended them once and for all.  (Applause.),Now, I should add, the arguments against these techniques did not originate from my administration.  As Senator McCain once said, torture "serves as a great propaganda tool for those who recruit people to fight against us."  And even under President Bush, there was recognition among members of his own administration -- including a Secretary of State, other senior officials, and many in the military and intelligence community -- that those who argued for these tactics were on the wrong side of the debate, and the wrong side of history.  That's why we must leave these methods where they belong -- in the past.  They are not who we are, and they are not America.,The second decision that I made was to order the closing of the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay.  (Applause.)#p#分页标题#e#,For over seven years, we have detained hundreds of people at Guantanamo.  During that time, the system of military commissions that were in place at Guantanamo succeeded in convicting a grand total of three suspected terrorists.  Let me repeat that:  three convictions in over seven years.  Instead of bringing terrorists to justice, efforts at prosecution met setback after setback, cases lingered on, and in 2006 the Supreme Court invalidated the entire system.  Meanwhile, over 525 detainees were released from Guantanamo under not my administration, under the previous administration.  Let me repeat that:  Two-thirds of the detainees were released before I took office and ordered the closure of Guantanamo.,There is also no question that Guantanamo set back the moral authority that is America's strongest currency in the world.  Instead of building a durable framework for the struggle against al Qaeda that drew upon our deeply held values and traditions, our government was defending positions that undermined the rule of law.  In fact, part of the rationale for establishing Guantanamo in the first place was the misplaced notion that a prison there would be beyond the law -- a proposition that the Supreme Court soundly rejected.  Meanwhile, instead of serving as a tool to counter terrorism, Guantanamo became a symbol that helped al Qaeda recruit terrorists to its cause.  Indeed, the existence of Guantanamo likely created more terrorists around the world than it ever detained.,So the record is clear:  Rather than keeping us safer, the prison at Guantanamo has weakened American national security.  It is a rallying cry for our enemies.  It sets back the willingness of our allies to work with us in fighting an enemy that operates in scores of countries.  By any measure, the costs of keeping it open far exceed the complications involved in closing it.  That's why I argued that it should be closed throughout my campaign, and that is why I ordered it closed within one year.,The third decision that I made was to order a review of all pending cases at Guantanamo.  I knew when I ordered Guantanamo closed that it would be difficult and complex.  There are 240 people there who have now spent years in legal limbo.  In dealing with this situation, we don't have the luxury of starting from scratch.  We're cleaning up something that is, quite simply, a mess -- a misguided experiment that has left in its wake a flood of legal challenges that my administration is forced to deal with on a constant, almost daily basis, and it consumes the time of government officials whose time should be spent on better protecting our country.,Indeed, the legal challenges that have sparked so much debate in recent weeks here in Washington would be taking place whether or not I decided to close Guantanamo.  For example, the court order to release 17 Uighurs -- 17 Uighur detainees took place last fall, when George Bush was President.  The Supreme Court that invalidated the system of prosecution at Guantanamo in 2006 was overwhelmingly appointed by Republican Presidents -- not wild-eyed liberals.  In other words, the problem of what to do with Guantanamo detainees was not caused by my decision to close the facility; the problem exists because of the decision to open Guantanamo in the first place.  (Applause.),Now let me be blunt.  There are no neat or easy answers here.  I wish there were.  But I can tell you that the wrong answer is to pretend like this problem will go away if we maintain an unsustainable status quo.  As President, I refuse to allow this problem to fester.  I refuse to pass it on to somebody else.  It is my responsibility to solve the problem.  Our security interests will not permit us to delay.  Our courts won't allow it.  And neither should our conscience.,Now, over the last several weeks, we've seen a return of the politicization of these issues that have characterized the last several years.  I'm an elected official; I understand these problems arouse passions and concerns.  They should.  We're confronting some of the most complicated questions that a democracy can face.  But I have no interest in spending all of our time relitigating the policies of the last eight years.  I'll leave that to others.  I want to solve these problems, and I want to solve them together as Americans.,And we will be ill-served by some of the fear-mongering that emerges whenever we discuss this issue.  Listening to the recent debate, I've heard words that, frankly, are calculated to scare people rather than educate them; words that have more to do with politics than protecting our country.  So I want to take this opportunity to lay out what we are doing, and how we intend to resolve these outstanding issues.  I will explain how each action that we are taking will help build a framework that protects both the American people and the values that we hold most dear.  And I'll focus on two broad areas:  first, issues relating to Guantanamo and our detention policy; but, second, I also want to discuss issues relating to security and transparency.#p#分页标题#e#