Nigerian Bomb Suspect Cooperating with FBI

Updated 8:12 pm. EST

FBI agents flew to Nigeria in the days following a failed Christmas Day terrorist attack and got the alleged bomber's family to help them persuade him to cooperate.

It worked. A senior Obama administration official says the FBI and family members have been talking to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab for a week and he's provided fresh intelligence for FBI terrorism investigations. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the ongoing investigation.

Two FBI agents flew to Nigeria in early January and contacted family members of Abdulmutallab. The agents then flew back to the United States with the family members on Jan. 17 and they helped gain the cooperation of Abdulmutallab, CBS News White House correspondent Chip Reid reports. The officials would not say which family members have been involved, specifically declining to say whether his father is involved. He also declined to say if the family is still in the U.S.

The official said giving Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights has in no way interfered with gaining his cooperation. In fact, the official argues, it was the unanimous judgment of intelligence and law enforcement professionals that Abdulmutallab was more likely to cooperate with civilian investigators than with military ones.

The Obama administration has drawn criticism for its handling of the Christmas Day attack. Republicans say it showed terrorist suspects can't be treated like criminals.

Abdulmutallab has been providing useful intelligence that FBI agents working with the intelligence community have been following up on in the United States and overseas, the official who spoke to the Associated Press said.

No one has said what, specifically, Abdulmutallab is telling officials - a likely sign that he has made a plea agreement with the government.

Sources tell CBS News that Abdulmutallab has provided "solid leads" but no one knows how valuable that information really is.

CBS News correspondent Sheila MacVicar reports that multiple international sources confirm Abdulmutallab is talking but also point out the most urgent questions of the investigation remain unanswered - where he got the explosive and who provided it to him.

On Capitol Hill, FBI Director Robert Mueller told Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on Tuesday that that Abdulmutallab did talk to FBI agents after he was arrested on Christmas Day, speaking freely until he went into surgery for burns on his legs.

After the surgery, when the FBI sought to resume the questioning, Abdulmutallab made it clear he would not answer further questions. When agents had satisfied themselves of that, they read him his Miranda rights, Mueller said.

Since the attempted bombing, several prominent lawmakers have argued Abdulmutallab should have been placed immediately in military custody or undergone more questioning before being given a Miranda warning by the FBI.

Abdulmutallab was arrested after other passengers pounced on him after, they said, he ignited a device on their jetliner as it approached Detroit.

[frankietheclaw]

Old professor, we are talking about the same CIA that saw the invisible nukes in Iraq right? You still have confidence?

[OldProfessor]

It would be amusing to note how many posters who know little about intelligence gathering, presume to know more than our professionals (FBI, CIA, NSA, etc) IF the matter was not so serious. It seems that many posters expect the professionals to share with us and our enemies just what they have learned and just what they have not been able to learn. In reality much of what we see and read on TV and the newspapers is misinformation and disinformation that is disseminated by "us" and "them". And the "us" includes our political parties who are also at war with each other. So the bottom line is: take what the news media and bloggers say with a big dose of skepticism.

[frankietheclaw]

We are still talking about the same CIA that saw the invisible nukes in Iraq right?

[SocietysNightmare]

Define PROPAGANDA. Providing (what is probably) false information to the media to scare the enemy. Typical. Knowing the CIA, how they persuaded the family in Nigeria to cooperate was ILLEGAL.

[SummarexStrikesBack]

This is starting to sound like some sort of routine we've been through before. Of course the guy will provide all the information he is told to provide and will finger all of the people he is told to finger. Then they will use the "information" to do whatever it is that they want to do. And that probably involves attacking another country. The reason is twofold. First it serves the sacred interests of Israel which these American traitors are so eager to serve, and second, it puts the US military in Africa where the Chinese are building up a presence.

[frankietheclaw]

So...remind me....how much money are we spending fighting an enemy when the best they can do is send an idiot that accidently sacrifices his privates. And the best we can do is question our procedures for rights that the enemy does not have? Have we not already lost?

[SueZeeeQue]

The official said giving Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights has in no way interfered with gaining his cooperation. In fact, the official argues, it was the unanimous judgment of intelligence and law enforcement professionals that Abdulmutallab was more likely to cooperate with civilian investigators than with military ones.

[troutfishyman]

Back in the good old days, they would have waterboarded him 89 times.

[jroach31]

It is truly remarkable how much better results we get by being adults and using the proper tools that have been used to conduct legal investigations for generations...

...instead of acting like terrified emotional infants that never quite figured out the difference between truth and lies.

[stryker54]

Right, I'm sure he is giving us so much useful intel. But now he probably has a plea agreement and given his Miranda rights.

[jroach31]

The great thing about torture is that you can get your victim to give any flavor of intelligence you want.

Just make a suggestion or two before you waterboard him for the third time; he'll tell you anything he thinks you want to hear. Anything.

Questioning using legal methods, family pressure, hints of maybe life instead of execution, you know--regular American justice system stuff--only produces what the perp thinks is true instead of what you wish was true. How can you start any good politically advantageous wars like that?

[jgg000101]

so we capture terrorists and call their mommies and daddies?

[jroach31]

Call their mommies and daddies?

Yep. It works. Then we try them, convict them, and sentence them. Just like we were a nation of laws instead of a nation of terrified, immature Ayn Rand fans.

[jgg000101]

"the most urgent questions of the investigation remain unanswered - where he got the explosive and who provided it to him."


this is the most important sentence of the entire article. Everything else is pure fluff.