2/12/10

The FBI-led interrogation of the failed Christmas Day underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has produced important results - including the arrest of ten terror suspects.  The policies the Obama administration has followed in his and other cases - interrogation guidelines, the reading of Miranda rights and the use of civilian courts - date from the Bush Administration and are supported by non-partisan national security experts, who feel that military trials and sensationalism only give terror suspects the notoriety they seek.

But none of this is evident from the public debate, where conservatives have taken politicization of national security and terrorism to dangerous new heights.  They have ignored the facts of the Abdulmutallab interrogation and its results - even when they were informed of it in advance.  They have taken positions to the right of the Bush administration and outside of the mainstream.  And the congressional conservative leadership has expressly said that this radical shift has simply been for partisan political gain.  Politicization of terrorism and national security to this extreme is a dangerous precedent to set; but with the President's foreign policy approval ratings rising, it appears the American people are not buying it.

Conservatives use terrorism for cheap political gain. Conservatives have taken politicization of national security to new heights, using terrorism as a "political football," foregoing their responsibilities as a party involved in governance.  Richard Clarke, the chief counterterrorism advisor to Presidents Clinton and Bush, writes this week about the politicization of the President's counterterrorism efforts by conservatives, particularly surrounding the interrogation of Abdulmutallab: "It has been hard to escape the conclusion that the goal of these critics is to discredit the President's handling of terrorism for political advantage, whether or not the administration is actually doing a good job." [Richard Clarke, NY Daily News, 2/9/10]

On terrorism conservatives have:

Been quiet in private, loud in public.  As the President's Homeland Security and Counterterrorism advisor John Brennan documented last Sunday on Meet the Press, "On Christmas night, I called a number of senior members of Congress. I spoke to Senators McConnell and Bond, I spoke to Representative Boehner and Hoekstra. I explained to them that he was in FBI custody,  that Mr. Abdulmutallab was, in fact, talking, that he was cooperating at that point. They knew that 'in FBI custody' means that there's a process then you follow as far as Mirandizing and presenting him in front of a magistrate. None of those individuals raised any concerns with me at that point. They didn't say, 'Is he going into military custody?' 'Is he going to be Mirandized?' They were very appreciative of the information, we told them we'd keep them informed, and that's what we did. So there's been a--quite a bit of an outcry after the fact where, again, I'm just very concerned on the behalf of the counterterrorism professionals throughout our government that politicians continue to make this a political football and are using it for whatever political or partisan purposes, whether they be Democrats or Republicans." [John Brennan, Meet the Press, 2/7/10]

Used terrorism as an electoral strategy. Politico reports that the conservative leadership in Congress has explicitly planned to attack the US terrorism strategy for electoral gain: "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has settled in on his election-year strategy: Identify issues that unite his caucus but divide the other party, then use them to drive a wedge between the White House and congressional Democrats. At the top of his list: the administration's handling of terrorism cases. Replicating his pattern of relentless, blistering speeches against President Barack Obama's health care proposal and his plan to shutter the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, McConnell has begun attacking Obama's plan to try terrorism suspects in civilian courts - and he's taking aim directly at Attorney General Eric Holder." [Politico, 2/9/10]

Attacked nonpolitical national security and intelligence professionals.  Last week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said that "Larry King has interrogated people longer and better" than the FBI's interrogation of Abulmutallab.   This week Senator Kit Bond, the ranking Republican on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, called for the resignation of John Brennan, a 25 year intelligence veteran who held senior counterterrorism positions in the Bush administration, including Deputy Executive Director of the CIA and acting Director of the National Counterterrorism Center.  [Mitch McConnell, 2/4/10. Politico, 2/10/10]

While Palin, conservatives deny facts surrounding the Underwear Bomber, his interrogation produces results - including arrests. Clarke writes: "The evidence is clear that the GOP talking point machine, repeated by Fox television commentators and others, does not bother to learn the facts about terrorism before they leap to attacking the party in power's handling of the issue. They are wrong on the facts and they are wrong morally to attempt to make political gain on the damage inflicted by terrorism."　

But Sarah Palin falsely declared at the Tea Party Convention in Nashville that "there are questions we would have liked this foreign terrorist to answer before he lawyered up and invoked our U.S. constitutional right to remain silent." Senator Susan Collins mocked the FBI interrogation saying, "Less than one hour. That's right, less than one hour. In fact, just fifty minutes. That's the amount of time that the FBI spent questioning Abdulmutallab, the foreign terrorist who tried to blow up a plane on Christmas Day. Then, he was given a Miranda warning and a lawyer, and, not surprisingly, he stopped talking."

However, these claims are simply incorrect.  Last week FBI Director Robert Mueller confirmed that federal agents have been successful in obtaining intelligence from Abdulmutallab: "It is a continuum in which over a period of time, we have been successful in obtaining intelligence, not just on day 1, but on day 2, day 3 day 4 and day 5 down the road." The Washington Post reports that Abdulmutallab "has been providing FBI interrogators with useful intelligence about his training and contacts." The Los Angeles Times reported that the FBI decided to mirandize Adulmutallab only after he had stopped providing useful intelligence. In fact, the interrogation of Abdulmutallab has already proven fruitful. Ken Gude of the Center for American Progress writes that, "The intelligence gained from Abdulmutallab has been shared widely throughout the intelligence community - and has already produced results. On January 21, Malaysian counterterrorism authorities arrested 10 suspected terrorists tied to Abdulmutallab." [Richard Clarke, NY Daily News, 2/9/10.Sarah Palin, 2/6/10. Mitch McConnell, 2/4/10. Susan Collins, 1/30/10. LA Times, 2/01/10. ABC News, 2/02/10. Robert Mueller, via Adam Serwer, 2/03/10. Ken Gude, Think Progress, 5/3/10]

On counterterrorism, conservatives run to the right of Bush administration, taking radical stances simply to oppose the Obama administration.  The conservative critique of the Obama administration's handling of terrorism suspects contradicts the same individuals' stands during the eight years of the Bush administration. They have, in fact, moved radically to the right of the Bush administration, opposing policies that just a few years ago were accepted by both parties. 

Mirandizing Terror Suspects. One of the biggest complaints from conservatives against the Obama administration is that Abdulmutallab was read his Miranda rights when arrested. However, under the Bush administration, "back in December 2001, Richard Reid - the 'shoe bomber' - was read or reminded of his Miranda rights four times in two days, beginning five minutes after being taken into custody,"  according to Mike Allen of Politico. [Politico, 2/2/10]

Civilian terror trials.  After congressional conservatives and former Bush administration officials accused the Obama administration of "falsehoods" about the Bush administration's prosecution of over 300 terrorists in civilian courts, "It turns out, according to official Justice Department records (which were made available to Declassified by a nonpolitical government official), there is at least a credible, if not rock-solid foundation for the administration's claim. According to this official summary of a 2009 Justice Department budget proposal that the Bush administration sent to Congress in 2008: 'Since 2001, the Department has increased its capacity to investigate terrorism and has identified, disrupted, and dismantled terrorist cells operating in the United States. These efforts have resulted in the securing of 319 convictions or guilty pleas in terrorism or terrorism-related cases arising from investigations conducted primarily after September 11, 2001, and zero terrorist attacks on American soil by foreign nationals from 2003 through 2007,'" according to Newsweek's Mark Hosenball. [Mark Hosenball, Newsweek, 2/9/10]

Interrogation guidelines established by the Bush administration. While conservatives have criticized the FBI's interrogation methods, John Brennan explained on Meet the Press this past Sunday that the FBI's interrogation procedures were established under the Bush administration: "in fact, the FBI's guidelines that they use, the FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, was the implementation of the attorney general guidelines that were finalized by Attorney General [Mukasey] ...in the last administration in December of 2008. That is when those guidelines were put in place. So the procedures and the protocols were exactly consistent with what we've done before." [John Brennan, Meet the Press, 2/7/10]

Politicizing and aggrandizing terrorists plays into the hands of al Qaeda.  John Brennan explains, "Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda. Terrorists are not 100-feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill. They will, however, be dismantled and destroyed, by our military, our intelligence services and our law enforcement community. And the notion that America's counterterrorism professionals and America's system of justice are unable to handle these murderous miscreants is absurd." As Fareed Zakaria wrote earlier this year, "The purpose of terrorism is to provoke an overreaction. Its real aim is not to kill the hundreds of people directly targeted but to sow fear in the rest of the population. Terrorism is an unusual military tactic in that it depends on the response of the onlookers. If we are not terrorized, then the attack didn't work."  [John Brennan, 2/9/10. Fareed Zakaria, 1/11/10]

Top Interrogator: Civilian Trials are the "most effective venue" for terrorism trials.  Ali Soufan, the former FBI interrogator who through traditional interrogation techniques of Abu Zubaydah discovered that Khalid Sheikh Mohammad was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, writes in the New York times today that, "I think that civilian courts are often the more effective venue. In fact, the argument that our criminal justice system is more than able to handle terrorist cases was bolstered just last week by revelations that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called Christmas bomber, is cooperating with the authorities.  Of the three terrorists tried under military commissions since 9/11, two are now free... In contrast, almost 200 terrorists have been convicted in federal courts since 9/11. These include not only high-profile terrorists like Zacharias Moussaoui, who was convicted of conspiracy to kill United States citizens as part of the 9/11 attacks, but also many people much lower on the Qaeda pecking order..." [Ali Soufan, NY Times, 2/12/10]