Simply put, Guantnamo is one of the best propaganda tools that terrorists have today. It's no coincidence that the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, dresses its victims in the same orange prisoner suits used in Guantnamo before conducting their ghastly beheadings. Our policies have allowed terrorists to cloud who holds the moral high ground. President George W. Bush said that he wanted Guantnamo to be closed. So did the former secretaries of state Condoleezza Rice and Colin L. Powell, as well as the former secretaries of defense Robert M. Gates and Leon E. Panetta, among others. In addition to being a terrorist recruiting tool, Guantnamo is a huge drain on taxpayer dollars. The cost per detainee at Guantnamo is 30 times more than that of the most secure detention facilities in the United States. It's hard to justify spending more than $2.5 million per detainee when it costs just $86,374 to hold an inmate in the so-called Supermax federal penitentiary in Colorado. During the Bush administration, 779 people were brought to Guantnamo, all without charge. Over time we've learned that many were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time and shouldn't have been detained in the first place. Most detainees - 532 to be exact - were released by the Bush administration. Of the 112 detainees who remain today, only about 10 have been convicted or charged with a crime. One thing has become clear: Keeping detainees at Guantnamo indefinitely hasn't worked.
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