Intel heads should roll
Congress was holding hearings yesterday about the Xmas bomber and how he ended up w/ a lawyer instead of an interrogator. The one thing that was perfectly clear is that all of our leaders tasked w’ a counterterrorism mission are incompetent and should be fired. Not a one of them, from FBI Director Mueller, to DNI Blair, to NCTC head Leiter, to DHS Sec Napolitano, to CT Adviser Brennan had a fucking clue how AbdulMutallab got classified as a common criminal and none of them were even consulted on the decision. WTF are we paying these losers for? They should have been on a conference call the second they found out about this and put their two cents worth in. Instead Leiter went skiing for God’s sake.
FBI’s Mueller tried to defend his own turf and said the decision was made by FBI agents on the ground in Detroit and it was the right call.
“The decision to arrest [Abdulmutallab] and put him in criminal courts, the decision was made by the agents on the ground, the ones that took him from the plane and then followed up on the arrest in the hospital,” Mueller told the committee. He also said: “In this particular case, in fast-moving events, decisions were made—appropriately, I believe, very appropriately—given the situation.”
Wrong answer dumbass. He should have been interrogated without a lawyer and using all the methods available to the CIA until we were certain all of the intel about al Qaeda’s operations in Yemen, who launched the bastard, had been obtained. Then, maybe we turn him over to law enforcement. But there was no reason to start acting like this was a simple criminal case of naughty behavior. At least ADM Blair the DNI had the brains to admit they blew it.
“I’ve been a part of the discussions which established this high-value interrogation unit, [HIG] which we started as part of the executive order after the decision to close Guantanamo. That unit was created for exactly 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. We did not invoke the HIG in this case,” he said. “We should have.”
No shit Sherlock, but somehow you and the rest of the brainiacs we pay to actually counter terrorists sat on your collective asses and let a couple of junior G-men in Detroit screw the pooch. I don’t even blame them, they were following the lame ass rules our collection of intel and justice clowns put in place and didn’t have the common sense to think through.
They all should be frog-marched to the front doors of the useless bureaucracies they failed to run and given the boot.
Tags: cia, dni, fbi, intelligence, NCTC
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Uncle Jimbo, Maggie Goff. Maggie Goff said: RT @Uncle_Jimbo: Intel heads admit they all screwed the pooch on Xmas bomber lawyering up http://bit.ly/6Y5DHg Give em all the boot [...]
UJ,
I don’t understand. Do you mean to say they are not admitting that it is the policy of this administration to try all accused terrorists in the civilian court system? That happens to be the position of the US Atty Gen – Eric Holder.
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/11/18/republicans-clash-with-attorney-general-eric-holder-over-terror/
The attorney general was not even prepared to notice that the trial of terrorists in civilian courts presents new legal issues.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/11/18/npr-shocker-attorney-general-holder-stumped-lindsey-graham
While I agree with your view about what should have been done as a practical matter, it seems to me that the low-level FBI agents understood their instructions and executed them according to the known policy of this administration.
So now we have very highly placed people refusing to admit that the policy exists. That would tend to foreclose the legitimate and necessary debate over the wisdom of the policy.
This kind of confusion is inappropriate at this level of government, and likely to result in revolting consequences for our citizens, as well as career-limiting events for anybody working for this administration.
Now we know why the Obama administration is having so many problems with its nominees — nobody with any political savvy wants to work for them.
UJ, you left off Atty Gen. Holder. And, no Mr. Mueller, it was NOT the right decision. But then, you’re just playing cover the FBI’s ass, and not addressing the problem.
It’s just an extension of the Obama Apology Tour to the Muslim world….It’s a bunch of amatuers who have no idea what it takes to protect this nation…
I guess Obama and Holder need to tell Al Qaeda to take a time out while we get HIG operational. Al Qaeda needs to take a vacation till after Nov 2nd these types of attacks on the US just don’t look good for this administration.
If Al Qaeda will not take a vacation then I guess Obama could dust off the Bush administrations process for handling Terrorist, and get the board and the bucket out of the closet. Just saying if you don’t have a plan, then maybe go with the previous administrations game plays that worked.
Great diatribe J. Once again you are on point.
Democrats love having incompetent people in high places.
Janet Reno
Madeline Nosobright
and the beat goes on.
I’d say obama’s going to hold the record for criminal incompetents on staff and cabinet for quite some time though.
And we will pay for this at some point in the future with people being murdered by assholes with boxcutters, figuratively speaking.
There is one guy somewhere , probably some low-level grunt that had to work Christmas day, that actually saw this jihaddi’s name and raised the alert. HE/SHE deserves a medal for actually doing the job. Then , during the 10 hour flight, apparently no one thought to call Ja-No or ADM Blaire or anyone else to make the decision to try to divert the aircraft or even alert the flight crew. The fact that this terrorist/man-caused whatever had a valid US visa doesnt seem to bother anyone in DC (Hint: Hillary’s State Dept). They will probably fire one of the guys in Amsterdam that forgot to ask about his luggage.
The “system” didn’t work.
Wow.
The decision to bypass those tasked with the counterterrorism effort and treat AbdulMutallab as a common criminal was made by Eric Holder.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/On-bombing-suspect_-tough-questions-for-Eric-Holder-82305397.html
That man ought to be fired for this, but this administration is going to have a tough time locating a lawyer dumb enough to take the position.
Valerie, Holder needs to be fired for a lot of things, this is just the foremost item in the agenda. There’s also the refusal to prosecute the two asshats from the NBP for voter intimidation, the reassignment of the US Attorney who decided they should be prosecuted, the conflicts of interest re: his law firm representing a whole bunch of the terrorists he’s trying to shepherd into civilian courts, his blind eye for ACORN… the list goes on.