WASHINGTON - November 13 - Statement by former Congressman Tom Andrews, Director, National Campaign to Close Guantanamo:

We applaud the President and Attorney General Eric Holder for moving justice forward today with the transfer of some of the detainees held at Guantanamo.  We join with General Colin Powell and General David Petraeus and the growing movement of Americans who support the President’s decision to close the facility.  As long as Guantanamo remains open, America’s image abroad will continue to be one of torture and our ability to lead will be hampered.

If the past is prologue, today will be fear vs. fact.  Partisan, fear based attacks by right-wing critics of President Obama are likely, including the charge that trying suspects of the 9/11 attack in U.S. courts will endanger Americans.  In fact, 195 terrorists have been convicted in U.S. federal courts since 2001.  The terrorists who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993 were tried and convicted in U.S. courts and are now locked away in a federal supermax prison.  Yet Republicans in Congress will no doubt attack the transfer of these detainees as a threat to Americans.

Those responsible for 9/11 are not warriors, they are criminals and mass murderers.  Treating them as anything else plays into al Qaeda’s hands and rewards them an elevated status that only stokes their desire for “martyrdom.”  They need to be subjected to the full force of law and justice – nothing less.