White House Damage Control: Politics or Policy?
(CBS/ AP)
In a five-page, single-spaced letter today to Senate Republicans, Holder took full responsibility for the decision to charge Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab with federal crimes. And he took full aim at critics who've argued it cost the United States valuable intelligence because the young al Qaeda operative promptly lawyered up and stopped talking.
In the letter, Holder adamantly defended his decision—and himself. "As Attorney General, I am guided not by partisanship nor political considerations," he said, but by a commitment to "protect the American people, defeat our enemies and ensure the rule of law." He managed to set himself up as a shining knight of principle and a guardian of the law, while calling into questions the motives of anyone who deigned to criticize him.
Holder said a contrary approach ignoring the role of the criminal justice system in fighting terrorism would be "foolish" and "dangerous." But that's exactly what critics have called the decision to stop questioning Abdulmutallab.
The decision was made in chaos on Christmas Day, after FBI agents questioned the severely wounded young Nigerian for a mere 50 minutes before he was rushed into surgery. There was no consultation with top intelligence officials, and the director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, who was out of the loop, questioned in Senate testimony whether it was the right call.
The former CIA Director, Gen. Michael Hayden, contended out in a recent Washington Post editorial that the decision cost valuable intelligence. And while the White House last night was heralding the fact that Abdulmutallab has now started talking again—five weeks after he tried to blow up the airliner--those critics say the five weeks of silence came at a high cost, with real consequences.
Although he still may have some intelligence to offer, the five-week delay in questioning him diminished it, they say, because it gave al Qaeda time to adjust to whatever he revealed—changing safe houses, closing down email accounts, adopting new pseudonyms.
That's why questions were raised immediately when agents read Abdulmutallab his rights and Holder opted to charge him with a crime like an ordinary murder suspect, instead of detaining him in a military process, with continued interrogations by intelligence experts.
But last night and today, administration officials now are insisting those questions can and should be put to rest. Their argument? It's the law, stupid. The law probably wouldn't let us do it.
Aware of needed damage control, the White House and Attorney General are now taking the position that, legally, it was "highly questionable" whether they could have detained the terror suspect and continued to question him without a lawyer, even if they wanted to. Holder, in his letter to the Senators, said that legal authority "is far from clear."
Many legal experts, however, agree the law is, in fact, pretty clear: It's not that highly questionable at all. Under existing law, the Obama Administration had the authority to detain and question Abdulmutallab more extensively. And it chose not to.
If the Obama Administration wants to make a policy decision to treat al Qaeda operatives as common criminals and not as enemy combatants, that's a position it could take—and some advocate they should. They've argued that giving rights to these terrorists, for example, will enhance our standing in the world and deter future terrorist acts.
But those are policy arguments and policy decisions, and they have consequences. They should stand or fall on the merits. They aren't required by law.
To argue, instead, that the law essentially tied has their hands—that the law all but required this course of action in Detroit--ignores the cases that have been decided.
And there's a danger in that. Whether or not the Obama Administration made the right call on Christmas Day, it's a problem to see top officials now make incomplete or misleading legal arguments to justify their decision after the fact.
Insisting it was "highly questionable" under the law to detain suspects like Abdulmutallab reminds me of the economic theory of path dependence. Decisions in the future could well be limited by what's decided today. You get on a path, and you can't change course.
Today's legal argument that it was "far from clear" they could continue interrogating Abudulmutallab, even if they wanted to, could set this administration down a fixed path on the most pressing issues facing this nation, based in no small measure on old-fashioned damage control.
There is clear legal basis to detain al Qaeda combatants. Congress expressly authorized force against "nations, organizations, or persons" who carried out the 9/11 attacks, and two Presidents have made it clear this is a war. Federal courts have either endorsed or not questioned the government's authority to detain al Qaeda members and actual combatants in wartime.
As Gregory Katsas, an assistant attorney general in the Bush Administration pointed out to me, Abdulmutallab is an actual combatant. He's not some money guy or a facilitator. He tried to blow up a plane with nearly 300 people on board. And he's not a U.S. citizen. Sure, he's being held in this country, Katsas notes, but so were three enemy combatants during the Bush Administration—Yaser Esam Hamdi, Jose Padilla and Ali Salah Al Marri--and courts have said those detentions were lawful.
And while it's true that a New York-based federal appeals court said the government had no authority to detain Padilla, a U.S. citizen arrested in the United States, the Supreme Court specifically rejected that rationale in another case involving Hamdi. A separate, Richmond-based federal appeals court later upheld his detention in the military process.
Bottom line: the government prevailed in every case involving enemy combatants being held in this country.
And while it's true, as Holder points out, that a federal judge could someday say that a non-U.S. citizen like Abdulmutallab had a right to a lawyer, even in the military process, the Supreme Court has never ruled those rights kick in immediately or at the same time as in the criminal process. At a minimum, they could have gotten days longer to question him by putting him on the military track.
One of the most fascinating undercurrents in this entire debate is seeing White House officials defend themselves by saying the Bush Administration decided to Mirandize attempted shoe bomber Richard Reid and try him in a criminal court. I didn't realize the Obama Administration had decided to adopt wholesale Bush's policies, yet they're arguing that since Bush did it with Reid, it's ok. But has anyone ever thought maybe Bush was wrong? He certainly wasn't arguing, as the Obama Administration is, that it was legally questionable to detain and extensively interrogate terror suspects without lawyers present.
"Quite a turnabout," Katsas said, "in rhetorical strategy."
And that's before you get to the real differences between Reid, whom many believe was more of a lone actor, and Abdulmutallab, who was an operative trained with and directed by al Qaeda abroad. Abdulmutallab presumably would have valuable, actionable intelligence—about his handlers, their locale, and his own individualized training--if interrogators had moved quickly to extensively question him before al Qaeda readjusted.
But that wasn't the path this administration took with Abdulmutallab. And the legal arguments top officials now are making to justify it suggest there won't be a course correction anytime soon.
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nytimes.com/2001/09/04/international/04GERM.html ?pagewanted=all
"The projects, which have not been previously disclosed, were begun under President Clinton and have been embraced by the Bush administration, which intends to expand them.
Earlier this year, administration officials said, the Pentagon drew up plans to engineer genetically a potentially more potent variant of the bacterium that causes anthrax, a deadly disease ideal for germ warfare."
"A published account of the experiment, which appeared in a scientific journal in late 1997, alarmed the Pentagon, which had just decided to require that American soldiers be vaccinated against anthrax. American officials tried to obtain a sample from Russia through a scientific exchange program to see whether the Russians had really created such a hybrid. The Americans also wanted to test whether the microbe could defeat the American vaccine, which is different from that used by Russia.
Despite repeated promises, the bacteria were never provided.
Eventually the C.I.A. drew up plans to replicate the strain, but intelligence officials said the agency hesitated because there was no specific report that an adversary was attempting to turn the superbug into a weapon.
This year, officials said, the project was taken over by the Pentagon's intelligence arm, the Defense Intelligence Agency. Pentagon lawyers reviewed the proposal and said it complied with the treaty. Officials said the research would be part of Project Jefferson, yet another government effort to track the dangers posed by germ weapons.
A spokesman for Defense Intelligence, Lt. Cmdr. James Brooks, declined comment. Asked about the precautions at Battelle, which is to create the enhanced anthrax, Commander Brooks said security was "entirely suitable for all work already conducted and planned for Project Jefferson."
While several officials in both the Clinton and Bush administrations called this and other research long overdue, they expressed concern about the lack of a central system for vetting such proposals.
And a former American diplomat questioned the wisdom of keeping them secret.
James F. Leonard, head of the delegation that negotiated the germ treaty, said research on microbes or munitions could be justified, depending on the specifics.
But he said such experiments should be done openly, exposed to the scrutiny of scientists and the public. Public disclosure, he said, is important evidence that the United States is proceeding with a "clean heart."
"It's very important to be open," he said. "If we're not open, who's going to be open?"
Mr. Leonard said the fine distinctions drawn by government lawyers were frequently ignored when a secret program was exposed. Then, he said, others offer the harshest possible interpretations ? a "vulgarization of what has been done."
But he concluded that the secret germ research, as described to him, was "foolish, but not illegal."
Why isn't the Post, NYT, and other MSM reporting this truth:
This was a spooky ploy, and NO media other than WSWS is saying boo about the truth behind the facade.
"A January 27 hearing of the House Committee on Homeland Security established that US intelligence agencies stopped the State Department from revoking the US visa of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The Nigerian student, whom US officials suspected of being affiliated with the Yemeni terrorist group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, attempted to set off a bomb on Northwest Flight 253 into Detroit on Christmas Day. Revocation of Abdulmutallab?s visa would have prevented him from boarding the airplane."
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/f253-f03.shtml
The MSM should be ashamed of not reporting this.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
This link is the complete link to WSWS report --- sorry for previous shortened link.
"The revelation that US intelligence agencies made a deliberate decision to allow Abdulmutallab to board the commercial flight, without any special airport screening, has been buried in the media. As of this writing, nearly a week after the hearing, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times have published no articles on the subject. Nor have the broadcast or cable media reported on it."
"Under questioning by the committee chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, Kennedy [State Dept Under Sect.] explained why the State Department might not revoke the US visa of a suspected terrorist: ?We will revoke the visa of any individual who is a threat to the United States, but we do take one preliminary step. We ask our law enforcement and intelligence community partners, ?Do you have eyes on this person and do you want us to let this person proceed under your surveillance so that you may potentially break a larger plot???
He added: ?And one of the members [of the intelligence community]?and we?d be glad to give you that out of [open session]?in private?said, ?Please, do not revoke this visa. We have eyes on this person. We are following this person who has the visa for the purpose of trying to roll up an entire network, not just stop one person.??
after calling the boston police "stupid", the cia "liars", returning troops "potential terrorists" it kinda makes you wonder who's side they're on.
It wasn't the "returning troops" that were labeled terrorists - it was brainwashed Fox News watchers.
And I think they're a bigger threat to America, than ANY of our terrorist enemies, just because they are brainwashed so much easier than radical Islamic jihadists.
How quickly they ALL forget that over 300 terrorists were tried and convicted in US courts under the Bush regime, and ALL of them were read and given their "miranda rights" AND assigned a lawyer if they couldn't afford one them self.
But go ahead and IGNORE HISTORY - it seems to be a pastime with you morons anyway.
obamareport.blogspot.com/2010/02/eric-holder-dangerous-prevaricator.html
Jan, I hope you will reveal Mr. Holder's blatant lies on the matter.