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.

”You are a terrorist, and we do not negotiate with terrorists.” — Federal District Court Judge William G. Young to Richard C. Reid, at his sentencing to life in prison on January 30, 2003. Reid pled guilty to attempting to blow up in flight American Airlines Flight 63.

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Chris Wallace (January 3, 2010, Fox News Sunday): “But once [Abdulmuttalab] gets his Miranda rights, he doesn’t have to speak at all.”

The President’s Homeland Security Assistant John Brennan: “He doesn’t have to, but he knows that there are certain things that are on the table, and if he wants to, in fact, engage with us in a productive manner, there are ways that he can do that.”

President Barack Obama’s policy of negotiating with terrorists is not one of America’s core values.

We don’t know yet if Abdulmuttalab was initially interrogated without being read Miranda warnings or if he later invoked the offered privileges. We do know Abdulmuttalab and Reid were in possession of explosive devices aboard commercial airlines and attempted to set off those devices. Their actions were enough proof to earn a life sentence from either a Military Commission or federal court; we did not need to read them “their” rights.

We also know it was a mistake to not interrogate Reid. He maintained that he acted alone, even though a different hand print was found on the explosive material. Reid was sentenced prior to Saajid Badat’s arrest in England. The latter backed out on the plot and confessed immediately to British police when they raided his parent’s house in November 2003 and found his shoe-bomb. Yet Badat did not turn himself in and only indicated “an Arab” gave him the device while he was in Afghanistan. A lot of people could have been killed because Reid remained silent.

Twenty-five British men reportedly trained in Yemen about the same time as Abdulmuttalab.

He may negotiate yet his bargaining position will be a lot stronger if only one jihadist sets off his panty-bomb in a small crowd. The terror instilled by that prospect is why enemy combatant Abdulmuttalab should not have been given the right to remain silent.

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Note: The title and text of this post were edited from the original.