Monthly Archives: January 2010

Abdulmutallab, Barack Obama, Flight 253, Richard Reid

Buck stops with Obama; President responsible for Flight 253 post-arrest intelligence failure

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Stephen Hayes writes today in The Weekly Standard that there is no protocol in place to evaluate a terrorist captured here for their potential intelligence value and the FBI agents who arrested Flight 253 bomber Abdulmuttalab decided on their own if and when to read him Miranda warnings. Yet those agents were operating in the dark:

“Mueller testified that those FBI agents interviewed Abdulmutallab about “ongoing and other threats.” What the FBI director did not mention was that his agents interviewed the terrorist without any input from the National Counterterrorism Center — the institution we now know was sitting on top of a small mountain of not-yet-correlated information about the bomber. So whatever information Abdulmutallab provided, he gave up in response to general questions about his activities, not in response to specific questions based on the intelligence the U.S. government had already collected on him. And within 24 hours — according to Senator Jeff Sessions, whose tough questioning [see video below] left Mueller stuttering — Abdulmutallab was Mirandized and he stopped talking. (It would be nice to learn, from Mueller or someone else in a position to know, precisely when Abdulmutallab was read his rights.)”

Director Mueller correctly defended the FBI agents who arrested Abdulmuttalab. From everything President Obama has said to date, it is apparent that he had given no guidance to the Department of Justice to do otherwise when terrorists are captured here.

Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair literally slapped himself in the forehead yesterday while testifying “Duh! We never thought of that.” Meaning, the current National Security Council never thought they needed to establish a protocol and disseminate guidance to federal law enforcement agents. Blair further testified that the “High Value Interrogation Group” (HIG) … was created exactly for this purpose — to make a decision on whether a certain person who’s detained should be treated as a case for federal prosecution or for some of the other means.” Only, he later wrote on the DNI’s web site that, “the FBI’s expertise in interrogation that will be available in the HIG once it is fully operational.” (Click on image below.)

President Obama did not establish either a protocol or the HIG to determine when to interrogate terrorists captured here, as enemy belligerents, or when to treat them as common criminals and read them their rights. The FBI agents went with what they knew, their training and the “Bush successfully prosecuted shoe-bomber Richard Reid” talking point. The lesson of Reid was lost, that his accomplice remained free with an armed shoe-bomb for two years because Reid was allowed to lawyer up and remain silent.

What Abdulmuttalab knows and is being allowed to not say may well get people killed. If so, that buck also stops with President Obama; he is responsible for the Flight 253 post-arrest intelligence failure.

Andy McCarthy, Barack Obama, Flight 253, Gitmo, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Scott Brown

Andrew McCarthy: It’s the Enemy, Stupid; National-security strength lifts Scott Brown

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Andrew McCarthy of the National Review Online writes today of the turning point (towards victory last night) in Scott Brown’s campaign for the U.S. Senate:

It was health care that nationalized the special election for what we now know is the people’s Senate seat. But it was national security that put real distance between Scott Brown and Martha Coakley. “People talk about the potency of the health-care issue,” Brown’s top strategist, Eric Fehrnstrom, told National Review’s Robert Costa, “but from our own internal polling, the more potent issue here in Massachusetts was terrorism and the treatment of enemy combatants.” There is a powerful lesson here for Republicans, and here’s hoping they learn it.
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Scott Brown went out and made the case for enhanced interrogation, for denying terrorists the rights of criminal defendants, for detaining them without trial, and for trying them by military commission. It worked. It will work for other candidates willing to get out of their Beltway bubbles.

Yes, the Left will say you are making a mockery of our commitment to “the rule of law.” MSNBC will run segments on your dark conspiracies to “shred the privacy rights of Americans.” The New York Times will wail that you’re heedless of the damage you’ll do to “America’s reputation in the international community.”

The answer is: So what? The people making these claims don’t speak for Americans — they speak at Americans, in ever shrinking amounts. If you’re going to cower from a fight with them, we don’t need you. Get us a Scott Brown who’ll take them on in their own backyard. And he’ll take them on with confidence because he knows their contentions are frivolous — and he knows that Americans know this, too.

I’ll add that the near mass-murder of those aboard Flight 253 and below on Christmas Day reminded America of the President’s most important job, national security.

President Barack Obama must lead the fight against Islamic radicals and radicalism, regardless of what he calls this war. Four recent polls — by CBS, Rasmussen, Quinnipiac, and Gallup — all indicate a huge majority of Americans want Gitmo kept open, military commissions used to prosecute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other war criminals, and terrorists interrogated for intelligence without being allowed to remain silent. While wars are not fought or won by committee, Mr. Obama would be wise to consider the will of the people as he proceeds in this most important task.