Mike Huckabee: Meet and Greet 12/21/07

Mike Huckabee
Meet and Greet, The Rendezvous Banquet Hall
Muscatine, IA 12/21/07

TRANSCRIPT:MIKE HUCKABEE: The question is why would I favor getting rid of Gitmo [Guantanamo Bay], right now, and I've been to Gitmo by the way. First of all, they're getting better treatment than most anywhere else. I'd just as soon they be in Leavenworth. I'm not for letting them go, let me be clear. Gitmo has become a very divisive symbol inside our own country of being used against the president unfortunately. The president was right to detain these people, and I support the detainment. They've actually been treated a little too well in some cases, as I said, I was there, I was amazed that the detainees get prepared meals that cost between 4 and 5 dollars per meal because we have to be so careful to observe their customs. Our own soldiers who are watching them get meals that are about a buck sixty a piece. Our guys are getting cold sandwiches, they're getting hot meals, that's a little much for me. I took my director of corrections with me when we went to Guantanamo, and I've been to every one of our Arkansas prisons. We've got quite a few. And I've been through every single one we've got, and I went to that one, and I came away saying I sure hope the guys in our system don't ever see this place. They'll figure out what do I gotta do to get here. It's just a little bit nicer than maybe you've ever seen in a type of prison that we have. And the fact is... again, I'm not for releasing these guys, but I don't want to have some symbolic reason that people feel like that this is a bad thing. If we put them in Leavenworth and our other federal prisons, now that the courts have decided that there's not a special status for them there, it no longer matters that they are off-shore. And so that's primarily the reason. You don't have to worry that they're not being cared for in a proper way. They certainly are down there. And maybe they're being cared for a little too nicely down there.

LABEL: MH IA 12-21 (GR#30) ECIF-clipA

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Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Mike
• Huckabee
• tracking
• republicans
• Iowa
• government
• Gitmo
• Guantanomo
• Bay
• Prisoners