From ICE to Guantanamo?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We had a raid in Douglas County here yesterday, and
they might be going to Guantanamo Bay. We've got twenty
four to seven News Network national correspondent frequent KFAB contributor
Rory O'Neill joining us here on news radio eleven ten KFAB. Rory,
Good morning. What you were You served time at Guantanamo Bay?

(00:20):
Is that right?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
I'm an ESKPE that'd be rare to get out of there. No,
but I did visit after they started bringing those prisoners
from the Middle East after the nine to eleven attacks,
and they started housing suspected terrorists there, and it's the
places of time capsule, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Yeah. I were talking about this yesterday about the very,
very huge difference for some of these criminal like gang member,
drug dealer, human trafficker, terrorist watchlisters here in this country
living pretty much free of any kind of punishment or

(01:00):
any kind of problems in their lives, going door to
door in Colorado apartment complexes, eating cats in Springfield, Ohio.
You know, whatever it was that some of these guys
were accused of doing, and they did, they didn't appear
to fear any kind of reprisal for anything. And now
some of them are going to be bunk mates with

(01:20):
suspected nine to eleven terrorists at Guantanamo Bay.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Well, and that's the big question as well, because they
want to have thirty thousand people housed at Guantanamo Bay,
which is just what it would be a logistical feat
because they you know, Guantanamo is so isolated on that island.
It doesn't connect to the rest of Cuba in any way,
so they have to generate their own water, their own electricity,

(01:45):
and that would be a real challenge to suddenly take
a base that has barely a thousand people on it
and suddenly have thirty thousand people now being held there
or we don't know how long. Now there would be
separate facilities, we believe for these mic cases and the
deportes versus the twenty or so terrorist suspects who are

(02:05):
still there. But building out facilities for thirty thousand people
is going to be remarkable.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Is that you said one thousand people there?

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Now?

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Is that the detainees there or just the entire staff
of American soldiers there at this naval facility.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, I need to update that. I do have to
look up that population number. I don't know it exactly,
but I would say there probably aren't more than twenty
five hundred people there based permanently, and I mean their
whole families as well. The base is broken up into
separate areas. There's a windward side and a leeward side,
mostly connected by ferry, and people have their families there,

(02:43):
they've lived there for years. There's a school and hospital
and a radio station and all that. And on the
other side of the hill is where they have the
maximum security facility. For now what is down to about
twenty people. It was nearly eight hundred, But where these
other thirty thousand go is just a big question because
it really isn't equipped for that. And I know it's

(03:03):
sort of easy to say, well, we'll just stick him
in Guantanamo, but that's an expensive proposition.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Certainly it might just be more bluster from President Trump
on that, but I mean, we just sent a bunch
of Indian nationals in this country illegally suspected of further
crimes back to India, So I mean, no place seems
to be off limits right now. Talking here with Rory O'Neill,
national correspondent for twenty four to seven News, we also

(03:31):
today have the deadline for any federal employees to accept
that Trump buyout. But tell me about this report here
about the CIA CIA offering to have their own kind
of buyout.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, this actually applies to several intelligence agencies, the CIA,
the National Security Agency, the Office of the Director of
National Intelligence DNI, all of them have received this offer
for a deferred resident nation. Essentially, you can quick today
and we're going to keep on paying you through September.
The concern is it could cause a real brain drain

(04:07):
at a time when you know there are threats emerging
all around the world. How many people do you want
leaving some of these agencies because they have expertise that
they've gathered over the years in very critical and sensitive areas.
I mean, let's face, any knuckle that can talk in
the radio, right, but it takes some very gifted people
in some of these departments, and we don't necessarily want

(04:31):
to lose them for the sake of national security.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
We proved that every day that any knucklehead can talk
on the radio.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
But is there goodness?

Speaker 1 (04:38):
Is there? I'm not qualified for anything else, so yeah,
thank goodness?

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Is right? Is there? Carry? Oh my god?

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Is there any evidence that there is a significant a
number of people within these agencies that would be taking
this potential buyout.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Well, right, that's the big X factor, right who takes it?
Does anyone take it? But you don't want the whole
China desk leaving today?

Speaker 1 (05:00):
Right?

Speaker 2 (05:00):
I mean, so that's the thing. How do they manage that?
And is this sort of a policy being done with
a sledgehammer when maybe a scalpel maybe better. And then
when you add in who could be getting fired from
the FBI or maybe taking a buy out because of
the current shakeup that's happening at the FBI, you could
really be losing a lot of people who have that
institutional experience. And look, I understand we've heard from President

(05:24):
Trump a thousand times Joe Biden weaponized the Justice Department. Okay, okay, okay,
but you don't necessarily want to replace one political operative
with another. Right, that doesn't serve anyone either.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
Shakeup is right. We're two and a half weeks in
and the fire hose is getting turned on stronger and
stronger as the days go by. Rory, I know you're
helping us cover it. Thanks a lot for the reporting
this morning.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
Thanks well in touch