Lieberman, Collins say trasfer underpants bomber to military custody for questioning

Jake Tapper:

The chairman and ranking Republican of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee today urged the Obama administration to transfer the Christmas Day bomber into military custody, and harged that though President Obama “has said repeatedly that we are at war, it does not appear to us that the President's words are reflected in the actions of some in the Executive branch, including some at the Department of Justice, responsible for fighting that war.”

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and the president’s top homeland security adviser, John Brennan, Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Susan Collins, R-Me., urged for the immediate transfer of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab into Pentagon hands to be “held as an unprivileged enemy belligerent (UEB) and questioned and charged accordingly.”

The two senators noted that once Abdulmutallab “was in custody, federal law enforcement officials on the ground in Detroit read the terrorist his Miranda rights. According to press reports, by the time the Miranda rights were read and Abdulmutallab went silent, he had been questioned for just under an hour, during which time he had been speaking openly about the attack” as well as the role of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

They took issue with the “decision to treat Abdulmutallab as a criminal rather than a UEB almost certainly prevented the military and the intelligence community from obtaining information that would have been critical to learning more about how our enemy operates and to preventing future attacks against our homeland and Americans and our allies throughout the world.”

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What makes this case different from some Bush administration criminal cases against terrorist is the understanding that more attacks are on the way and this guy knows something about those attacks. He can probably provide names and methods of evading detection used by the terrorist. He can also provide information on who was responsible for training him and where it took place. We know from his own testimony that he is aware of other attacks and we just heart a tape from bin Laden bragging about coming attacks. It is irresponsible not to get this information from this guy. Using a lawfare approach in this case is a big mistake.