Obama: We’ll Continue Giving Detainees to Countries that ‘Ensure Our National Security Interests Are Met’

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:
"Today the defense department, thanks to very hard work by the secretary of defense, ash Carter, as well as his team working in concert with the office of management budget, today the department is submitting to Congress our plan for finally closing the facility at Guantanamo once and for all. It's a plan that reflects the hard work of my entire national security team. I especially want to thank ash and his teamed a DoD. This plan has my full support. It reflects our best thinking on how to best go after terrorists and deal with those who we may capture, and it is a strategy with four main elements. First, we'll continue to securely and responsibly transfer to other countries the 35 detainees out of the 91 that have already been approved for transfer. Keep in mind this process involves extensive and careful coordination across the federal government to ensure that our national security interests are met when an individual is transferred to another country. So, for example, we insist that foreign countries institute strong security measures. And as we move forward, that means that we will have around 60 and potentially even fewer detainees remain."