Gitmo Is Not a Recruiting Tool for Terrorists :: Karl Rove

In his Dec. 22 news conference, President Barack Obama claimed that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility was 'probably the No. 1 recruitment tool' for al Qaeda and its affiliates. This is an escalation: Earlier this year he merely called it 'a tremendous recruiting tool' for Islamic terrorists.

But the president is wrong to assign such importance to Gitmo and, by implication, to suggest it would be a major setback to al Qaeda were he to close it, as he promised but failed to do by the end of his first year in office. Shuttering the facility would not take the wind out of terrorism, in part because it is not, and never has been, its 'No. 1 recruitment tool.'"