22 Senators blast Underwear Bomber lawfare trial

ABC News:

Twenty-two U.S. senators have signed a letter to President Obama denouncing his administration’s decision to try the Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, in civilian courts rather than through a military tribunal as a designated “enemy combatant.”

The letter was spearheaded by Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and sent off to the White House Friday.

“We fear this decision has resulted in a missed opportunity to collect timely intelligence,” the letter said, “and is indicative of a troubling pre-9/11 mentality that treats terrorism as a law enforcement rather than intelligence matter.”

The senators said assigning Abdulmutallab an attorney after only 30 hours of questioning by the FBI amounted to a missed opportunity with potentially grave repercussions.

“Put simply," the letter said, "deciding to prosecute Abdulmutallab in a criminal court has limited our tools 'on the table' to offering a terrorist who tried to murder almost 300 passengers on a plane less time behind bars.”

...

Hey, I would sign that letter too. It is consistent with my blog post on the issue. The administration really does not have an answer to the issues raised. If the next bomber gets through and they did not catch him because they cut off interrogation it will demonstrate a very costly blunder.

This from CBS points out the problem:

British Intelligence has confirmed perhaps the most chilling boast that accused Christmas Day bomber Umar Abdulmutallab made to investigators after his arrest: that close to 20 other young Muslim men were being prepared in Yemen to use the same technique to blow up airliners, CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports exclusively.

...
Doesn't this information just beg for further inquiry about who the other 20 are and the wheres and whens of their next strike? So the administration goes with enhanced screening rather than enhanced interrogation?

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