DON'T WANT TO BE SEEN AS SOFT-HEARTED?:

A Course Correction On Terrorism (Stuart Taylor Jr., Feb. 6, 2010, National Journal)

[P]risks permanent political damage unless he dispels the soft-on-terrorism charge.

The charge is unfair. But it is gaining traction because of two glaring mistakes.

One was the decision by Attorney General Eric Holder's Justice Department to advise Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab after only 50 minutes of interrogation that he had a right to stop talking -- which he did. This blunder was compounded by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's fantasy that "the system worked," by Obama's fatuous assertion that Abdulmutallab was "an isolated extremist," and by Holder's unconvincing defense of the initial mistake in a five-page letter to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell on February 3.

The other mistake was Holder's decision to put the 9/11 defendants on trial in Manhattan.

The administration will apparently reverse that decision. But it also needs to put an effective interrogation policy in place before the next would-be bomber is captured. Doing that would be an implicit admission that the administration bungled the Abdulmutallab interrogation. Better to make the admission explicit, and thereby to demonstrate a thus-far-invisible capacity to learn from mistakes.

The recent leaks that the suspect has started talking to interrogators again do not redeem the decision to Mirandize him. His more than a month of silence gave his co-conspirators plenty of time to cover their tracks and to advance a wave of attacks had that been their plan. The administration also claims that Abdulmutallab gave up important information the day he was captured. But that only underscores the foolishness of stopping the interrogation after 50 minutes.

"I have some experience with interrogation, and 50 minutes does not get you what you need," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. He also understands a distinction that appears to escape Holder: Although torture is a moral horror, aggressive interrogation is a moral imperative when lives could be at stake.

Don't be soft-headed.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 5, 2010 5:39 PM