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Bid to shut Guantanamo roils Pentagon, White House, Congress

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration's struggling quest to close the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is mired in state and federal politics. Frustrated White House and Pentagon officials are blaming each other for the slow progress releasing approved detainees and finding a new prison to house those still held.

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Defense Secretary Ash Carter is facing criticism from some administration officials who complain that he has not approved enough transfers, even though 52 Guantanamo detainees are eligible. Carter's predecessor, Chuck Hagel, was forced from the Pentagon job in part because the White House felt he was not moving quickly enough to send detainees to other countries.

Two officials said the White House is frustrated because President Barack Obama discussed the issue with Carter when he was hired this year to lead the Defense Department, and they believed Carter was on board with the White House's plans to act faster.

Other U.S. officials note that Carter has approved some transfers and is pushing his staff to move quickly to get more to his desk. But many other proposed transfers are slogging through the bureaucracy, under review by a long list of defense, military, intelligence and other administration offices. The transfers cannot be approved unless officials believe the detainees will not return to terrorism or the battlefield upon release and that there is a host country willing to take them.

During his two years as Pentagon chief, Hagel approved 44 detainee transfers. Carter, in his first seven months, has transferred six.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook issued a statement Saturday saying that Carter shares Obama's commitment to closing the detention facility ?responsibly and has been working "deliberately and diligently" on a comprehensive plan.

"Working with our interagency partners and Congress, his top priority has been and will continue to be the safety and security of the American people," Cook said.
Obama has promised to close the facility since he was a presidential candidate in 2008. He said it ran counter to American values to keep people in prison, many without criminal charges or due process.

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FILE - In this Aug. 20, 2015 file photo, Defense Secretary Ash Carter speaks during a news conferenc …

Opponents have argued the detainees are essentially prisoners of war.
From a peak of 680 prisoners, 116 remain. Finding acceptable places for them has been an intractable problem.

"Finding a solution for these individuals involves complicated negotiations with international partners, extensive consultations with the leaders of the national security and legal organizations and final approval by me," Carter told reporters.

A key player in the process is Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Dempsey, who spent more than three years as a commander in Iraq, continues to be very cautious in his recommendations for transfers. His opinions carry a lot of weight.
According to U.S. officials familiar with the process, Carter recently notified Congress of two transfers, and has four whose files are ready to go to Capitol Hill, likely later this month. Congress has 30 days to review the transfers before they are made public.
A number of U.S. officials familiar with the ongoing discussions spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the subject publicly.
The movement of detainees is only part of the challenge. A greater hurdle will be finding a U.S.-based prison to house the 64 detainees considered too dangerous to be sent to another country. Congress has opposed any effort to bring detainees to America, so Obama's long-stated goal of closing Guantanamo before he leaves office in January 2017 is more likely to die on the steps of Capitol Hill.

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FILE - In this May 31, 2009 pool-file photo reviewed by the U.S. military and shot through a window, …

Aware of those objections, the White House last month stalled Pentagon efforts to send a plan to Congress outlining several U.S. prisons that could be upgraded and used for the detainees. Early drafts of the plan included some rough estimates of the costs and the time needed for renovations.
U.S. officials said the administration was worried that sending the plan to Congress could affect the crucial vote on the Iran nuclear deal by infuriating lawmakers who do not want the detainees moved to the U.S. or who adamantly oppose having them in a prison in their state or district. The resolution of disapproval of the Iran deal failed in the Senate, handing Obama a victory on that issue.
Three to five civilian facilities are being eyed as potential sites, officials said. A Pentagon team has gone to military facilities in South Carolina and Kansas to develop better estimates of construction and other changes that would be needed to house the detainees as well as conduct military commission trials for those accused of war crimes.
The visits to the Navy Consolidated Brig in Charleston, South Carolina, and the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas triggered immediate outrage from lawmakers and governors there.
Republican Govs. Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Sam Brownback of Kansas have threatened to sue the administration if detainees are brought to either state.

Both the House and Senate have pending legislation that would maintain prohibitions on transferring detainees to U.S. facilities. The Senate legislation allows the restrictions to be lifted if the White House submits a plan to close the facility and it's approved by Congress.

GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has made it known he would consider a comprehensive plan to close Guantanamo, but said it must include answers to a number of tough legal and policy questions, including whether detainees held in the U.S. would have additional rights.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has opposed using the Charleston brig because it is in a populated area.

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., has said flatly that, "Not on my watch will any terrorist be placed in Kansas."

Carter has acknowledged the challenge of getting a U.S. facility approved by Congress, but has insisted that some lawmakers have indicated a willingness to consider a plan.

"This would be a good thing to do if — if we can all come together behind a plan to do it," Carter told reporters. "Our responsibility is to provide them with a plan that they can consider that is a responsible one."

Carly Fiorina fires back at Donald Trump as feud heats up before GOP debate

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina turned the tables on Donald Trump after he said her face makes her unelectable.

Rather than sidestep the putdown, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO cleverly turned it into an asset, encouraging a National Federation of Republican Women audience to do exactly what Trump commanded: “Look at that face!”

“Ladies, look at this face. This is the face of a 61-year-old woman. I am proud of every year and every wrinkle,” Fiorina said to roaring applause, kicking off her speech Friday night. “And look at all of your faces. The face of leadership … in our party, the party of women’s suffrage.”

Fiorina, the only woman running for the GOP nomination, has been rising in the polls and made the cut for the next primetime Republican debate Wednesday; her campaign picked up momentum after a strong performance in the party’s first JV debate.

At the Reagan Library in California, the former businesswoman will face off against a slew of career politicians and two other outsiders making waves: retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and Trump.

The real estate magnate turned reality TV star lobbed his insult turned alley-oop while being interviewed for a Rolling Stone article that was published Wednesday. 

"Look at that face!” Trump said while watching Fiorina on TV. “Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?! … I mean, she’s a woman, and I’m not s'posedta say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?”

Later that night, Fiorina responded in a conversation with Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, another woman with whom Trump has feuded.

“Well, I think those comments speak for themselves,” she said. “And all of the many, many, many thousands of voters out there that are helping me climb in the polls, yes, they’re very serious.”

Fiorina suggested her rising polls numbers might be worrying Trump. One thing is certain: Both of their poll numbers should be troubling for their competition — dyed-in-the-wool Washington insiders.

“Seventy-five percent of the American people think the federal government is corrupt,” she said during the National Federation of Republican Women speech. “Eighty-two percent of the American people now think we have a professional political class that is so focused with the preservation of its own power, privilege and position that it has forgotten who it is there to serve.”

Fiorina also went after former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and criticized the Democratic Party for — from her perspective — treating women as a special interest group rather than the majority of the country.

“I personally am so tired of hearing about women’s issues. Every issue is a woman’s issue,” she said. “We care about health care. We care about national security, education, about debts and deficits. Yes, we care about the character of our nation.”

Report: Iran finds 'unexpectedly high' uranium reserve after Dems seal nuke deal for Obama

It'd that a miracle? Iran just happens to find uranium right after the big dummy makes a deal with them.

Iran has reportedly found an unexpectedly high reserve of uranium, following assessments that the country is running low on the nuclear raw material and just days after President Obama essentially secured an international nuclear deal with the country's leaders.
The discovery was reported first by Reuters and based on comments made by Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi to the state news agency IRNA.
"I cannot announce (the level of) Iran's uranium mine reserves," Salehi was quoted as saying. "The important thing is that before aerial prospecting for uranium ores we were not too optimistic, but the new discoveries have made us confident about our reserves."
The international deal with Iran, largely brokered by the Obama administration, slows the country’s nuclear development for nearly a decade in exchange for the lifting of billions of dollars worth of crippling economic sanctions.
World leaders think Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon, despite Tehran’s denial.
However, Iran under the deal will still be able to pursue a nuclear-development program, for which the uranium could be used.
The remarks by Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, could not be found Saturday morning on the IRNA website. But another story had him as saying the deal -- reached in July and officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action -- will not slow the pace of Iran’s nuclear program.
“The official said the restrictions which the JCPOA entails are by no means the ones which would restrict Iran in its nuclear activities,” reads one line in the story.
Several other news-gathering agencies have either picked up the Reuters’ story or cited it in their own version.
That Obama would win congressional approval of the deal became apparent in recent weeks, but not without a fight from the GOP-controlled Congress and other critics including conservative groups and pro-Israel organizations.
However, the president worked all summer to garner support from Senate Democrat, who on Thursday block chamber Republicans from disapproving of the deal and from forcing Obama to resort to a presidential veto to win approval for what will likely be considered his biggest foreign policy achievement.
Salehi reportedly said uranium exploration had covered almost two-thirds of Iran and would be complete in the next four years.
Uranium can be used for energy production and scientific purposes but is also a key ingredient in nuclear weapons.
Some Western analysts have previously said that Iran was close to exhausting its supply of yellowcake -- or raw uranium -- and that mining it domestically was not cost-efficient, according to Reuters.
A report published in 2013 by U.S. think-tanks Carnegie Endowment and the Federation of American Scientists said the scarcity and low quality of Iran's uranium resources compelled it "to rely on external sources of natural and processed uranium,” the wire service also reported.
Iran has repeatedly denied overseas media reports that it has tried to import uranium from countries like Kazakhstan and Zimbabwe.

Donald Trump, Rand Paul feud reaches new level

The rhetoric between Republican front-runner Donald Trump and Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., is heating up on the campaign trail ahead of the next GOP debate.

At a Saturday rally in Boone, Iowa, Trump blasted Paul as being an “ineffective guy” and weak on immigration and national security issues. He claims Paul is attacking him because his polls numbers remain quite low and he needs media attention.

Trump currently stands at nearly 30 percent compared to Paul’s two percent, according to the latest Real Clear Politics average polling.

During his speech, Trump blasted critics who say he’s picking fights with his fellow Republicans and pointed to primary voters who prefer his “aggressive tone and tremendous energy."

The latest feud began Thursday when Paul, referring to Trump, said “I don’t really think there’s anything conservative about him and I think he’s selling us a bill of goods. And so I think we need to be very careful that we don’t succumb to celebrity and all of the sudden get a fake conservative that turns out to be a big government Republican.”

Later Saturday, Trump again blasted Paul on social media. “Lightweight Senator Rand Paul should focus on trying to get elected in Kentucky--- a great state which is embarrassed by him,” said the businessman in a tweet.

In another Twitter post, he took a personal dig at Paul, saying he doesn’t compare to his father, former congressman and 2008 Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. “I truly understood the appeal of Ron Paul, but his son, Rand Paul, didn't get the right gene,” he said.

Since Trump announced his White House run in June, both candidates have spared over policy and personality.

Earlier this month, Paul said Trump “is a disaster. I think he will hurt the country and will lose in a land slide.”

At a New Hampshire rally in August, Trump told supporters a story about him playing golf with Paul. “So I'm actually a good golfer. I killed him, OK? I killed him. If I didn't, I wouldn't say it, but I killed him.”