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We will never win this war until we understand the effect that Guantanamo Bay has had on the overall war effort. And we'll never get the support of the American people if we can't prove to them that these folks that we're dealing with are not common criminals. We're going to keep them - keep you safe from them.

The United States is holding hundreds of suspected terrorists in prisons at Guantanamo and elsewhere. Many are locked up indefinitely. They have not been tried or even charged with any crime.

Our actions in the Middle East over the last 15 years have already guaranteed radical Muslims quite enough ammunition to kill Americans for the next century, even if Guantanamo did not exist.

Guantanamo Bay is a first-rate detention facility that's kept terrorists off the battlefield and kept America safe. It's critical role in our national security cannot be overstated.

Guantanamo is a chief recruiting tool for al-Qaida. It has put a wedge between the United States and at least some of its allies.

The military tribunals currently underway at Guantanamo Bay create a clear legal process, as affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, for adjudicating the cases of these terrorists, when possible. Those efforts would be severely undercut by moving the detainees to the United States.

We aren't using Guantanamo Bay anymore to take additional terrorists. That was the perfect facility to be able to use to extract information from people to keep the American people safe.

Guantanamo Bay is a facility that I think should be utilized by the United States for detainees, say, out of Syria.

In my heart of hearts, I don't think it's a good position to say that Guantanamo is not an acceptable answer for anyone we might capture now or in the future.

President Obama likes to say Guantanamo Bay is a terrorist recruiting tool, and while that may be an easy excuse, it's simply not true. The reality is the motivations of radical Islamic jihadism existed before Guantanamo Bay. The ideology is premised on a narrative of conquest, in the spiritual as well as the earthly world.