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House GOP rallying around Boehner's concern about Obama's purported ‘dangerous’ plan to close Guantanamo

House Speaker John Boehner has denounced any potential White House effort to close the Guantanamo Bay prison facility, saying that such a move is "dangerous," could result in terrorists being relocated into the United States and that overriding Congress is another example of the Obama administration’s “legacy of lawlessness.”
Boehner made the statement Friday, following a Wall Street Journal story stating the White House is “drafting options” that would allow Obama to close the detention facility in Cuba by overriding congressional restrictions on bringing detainees into the U.S.
The White House has responded to the story, reportedly based on information from senior administration officials, by saying the president opposes the restrictions but his first choice is to work with members of both parties.
“For many years now, we’ve always looked at options to close Guantanamo Bay,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters Friday. “For now, our position is clear that we’re seeking support from Congress to lift those restrictions.”
Boehner argued that closing the facility -- which would send some detainees home and bring others to the U.S. for trial -- is opposed by an  “overwhelming majority of Americans” and that bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate have passed legislation that prohibits the president from transferring the terror detainees to U.S. soil.
He was joined Friday by Florida GOP Rep. Vern Buchanan, who said such a move would be "a huge mistake," particularly as the U.S. tries to destroy Islamic State, or ISIS, militants.
“As America battles ISIS in the Middle East, the last thing we should do is close a facility used to interrogate and house dangerous terrorists,”  Buchanan said.
The restrictions were included in the fiscal 2015 National Defense Authorization Act passed in May by the GOP-led House.
Schultz on Friday noted the legislation, now sitting in the Democrat-controlled Senate, included a Statement of Administration Policy, in which the White House officially opposes the restrictions.
The president had declared 2014 a “year of action” in which he will use his presidential authority -- through so-called executive action or unilateral action -- to advance parts of his agenda blocked by Congress.
Obama has already used such power to increase the federal minimum wage but apparently has backed off using it to reform contentious U.S. immigration policy until after the November elections.
The future of Guantanamo and its detainees as well as Obama’s legal authority to hold them has long been the subject of contentious Washington debates.
Obama has from the start of his presidency in 2009 tried to close the facility at the Guantanamo Naval base, starting with an executive order that called for its closure within a year.
The Wall Street Journal story also claimed that Obama is “unwavering in his commitment” to closing the prison, which was created in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and still has 149 inmates detained in the country’s war on terrorism.
The story also stated that White House officials think the president has two likely options if Congress extends the restrictions.
He could veto the defense authorization act, which wouldn’t directly impact military funding but would result in a political battle with Congress. Or he could sign the bill while declaring restrictions on the transfer of Guantanamo prisoners an infringement of his powers as commander in chief, as he has done previously, according to the story.

Despite airstrikes, ISIS forces draw nearer to Baghdad

As of May 29, 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Defense casualty website, there were 4,487 total deaths (including both killed in action and non-hostile) and 32,223 wounded in action (WIA) as a result of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Despite airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition, Islamic State militants are in a position to wreak havoc on Baghdad after making gains in nearby territories, adding to the sense of siege in the Iraqi capital.
Yet some military experts believe that the terror group, who now control a large territory along the border of Iraq and Syria, won’t be able to defeat the forces now massed around the capital.
However their new position does give them the ability to wreak terror in Iraq's biggest city, with its suicide attacks and other assaults further eroding confidence in Iraq's nascent federal government and its troops, whose soldiers already fled the Islamic State group's initial lightning advance in June.
"It's not plausible at this point to envision ISIL taking control of Baghdad, but they can make Baghdad so miserable that it would threaten the legitimacy of the central government," Richard Brennan, an Iraq expert with RAND Corporation and former Department of Defense policymake told The Associated Press.
The siege fears in Baghdad stem from recent gains made by the Islamic State group in the so-called Baghdad Belt -- the final stretch between Anbar province, where the group gained ground in January, and Baghdad. The group has had a presence in the Baghdad Belt since spring, Iraqi officials say, but recent advances have sparked new worries.
The Islamic militants have reportedly infiltrated the Baghdad suburb of Abu Ghraib, not far from the runway perimeter of Baghdad's international airport.
Islamic State’s proximity to the airport is especially worrisome, because they are now armed with shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles with a 20-mile range, according to the Iraqi Defense Ministry. The weapons, which Islamic State has grabbed up along with tanks, helicopters and fighter planes as it has seized up vast territory in northern Syria and Iraq, could allow the militants to shut down the airport.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military said Saturday it launched an airstrike north of the town of Tal Afar, hitting a small Islamic State fighting unit and destroying an armed vehicle. It said two other airstrikes northwest of Hit in Anbar province targeted two small militant units.
Last week, Islamic State group fighters seized the towns of Hit and neighboring Kubaisa, sending Iraqi soldiers fleeing and leaving a nearby military base with its stockpile of weapons at risk of capture. The U.S.-led coalition recently launched two airstrikes northwest of Hit, U.S. Central Command said Saturday.
To the south of Baghdad, security forces fight to hold onto the town of Jurf al-Sukr, and to the north, one Sunni tribe has held onto the town of Duluiyah despite an Islamic State group's onslaught. However, Islamic State group fighters have taken over a number of towns in Diyala province, east of Baghdad.
"It's scary," said Maha Ismail, who recently visited one of Baghdad's new shopping malls. "But we have seen a lot worse than this so we are gathering despite all the warnings."
Islamic State group says it has a foothold inside Baghdad, having claimed responsibility for a number of attacks in the city, particularly in the Sadr City neighborhood -- a Shiite stronghold. In August, the group claimed responsibility for an attack on a Shiite mosque in New Baghdad, and another in the Shiite-majority district of Utaifiya in Baghdad, which together killed 26 people.
Some attacks go unclaimed, raising fears that other groups may look to capitalize on the tensions provoked by the Islamic State group. On Saturday, a series of unclaimed car bomb attacks in Iraq's capital killed 38 people in Shiite areas, authorities said.
Police officials said the first bombing happened Saturday night when a suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden car into a security checkpoint in Baghdad's northern district of Khazimiyah, killing 13 people, including three police officers, and wounding 28.
 The second car bombing, targeting a commercial street in Shula district in northwestern Baghdad, killed seven people and wounded 18, police said. The blast damaged several shops and cars.
 Also in Shula, police said a suicide car bomb attack on a security checkpoint killed 18 people and wounded dozens others.
Yet analysts, like Brennan from the RAND Corporation, say capturing Baghdad remains beyond the Islamic State group's ability. At its worst, the group might "start pressing into the western areas of Baghdad, going into the Sunni areas of Baghdad and pressing up against the Tigris (River) -- if not controlling it, then at least testing the control of the central government," he said.
Air Force Col. Patrick Ryder, a U.S. Central Command spokesman, said Saturday that the Iraqi military "continues to maintain firm control of the city and there is no imminent threat of an effective" offensive by the Islamic State group.
"While there are pockets of ISIL in the vicinity of Baghdad, (Iraqi security forces) continue to conduct operations to engage these elements and push back with the support of U.S. airstrikes when necessary," Ryder said.
Beyond the U.S.-coordinated airstrikes and the massing of Iraqi troops, the country's religious and ethnic lines likely will staunch any advance by the Sunni militants of the Islamic State group. From Baghdad further south, Iraq's population is overwhelmingly Shiite and the lands there are home to some of its most important shrines.
Already, Shiite militias back up government forces in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq -- their flags and symbols provocatively displayed across the capital. Such militias, like Iran-supported Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, "are battle tested," said David L. Phillips, the director of the Peace-building and Rights Program at Columbia University. Challenging them likely would become a bloody slog for the Islamic State group, he said.
"The militias are not bound by rules of war," he added. "They and (the Islamic State group) share one thing in common: Neither is bound by the Geneva Conventions."

Health care worker at Dallas hospital tests positive for Ebola

A health care worker at a Dallas hospital tested positive for Ebola in a preliminary test, the Texas Department of State Health Services said in a statement early Sunday.
The health care worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, who was not identified in the statement, provided care for Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient in the United States, who died last week.
The worker reported a "low grade fever" Friday night and was isolated and referred for testing. The preliminary result was received late Saturday.
"We knew a second case could be a reality, and we've been preparing for this possibility," Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, said in the statement. "We are broadening our team in Dallas and working with extreme diligence to prevent further spread."
Health officials have interviewed the patient and are identifying any contacts or potential exposures.
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital has come under scruntiny for its handling of Duncan, who first showed up at the hospital's emergency room late on the evening of Sept. 25, complaining of a fever and severe pain. Although documents show that a nurse recorded early in Duncan's first hospital visit that he recently came to the U.S. from Africa and his temperature reached 103 degrees, he was prescribed antibiotics and told to take Tylenol, then returned to the apartment where he was staying with a Dallas woman and three other people.
The Associated Press reported that Duncan's temperature reading was flagged with an exclamation point in the hospital's record-keeping system.
Duncan died Oct. 8. A spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services said the agency was considering investigating the hospital for compliance with state health and safety laws.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.