The attempted Christmas Day destruction over Detroit of Northwest Flight 253 by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is fading from public memory as a fortunate near-miss. This incident should not fade from view. As more information emerges, the picture it paints about the antiterror mindset of the current U.S. government is—there is no other word—scary.
Last week in these columns, we discussed Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair’s Congressional testimony on the Abdulmutallab case. This was Mr. Blair’s famous “duh” remark about the government’s failure to invoke the new High-Value Detainee Interrogration Group (HIG) to question Abdulmutallab. A remarkable Associated Press story this past weekend makes clear that “duh” was mainly another word for disgust inside the intelligence bureaucracy over what happened that day in Detroit.
Here, compressed, is AP’s account of how Abdulmutallab was handled after the plane landed. Read it and weep.
He was taken to the hospital by U.S. Customs agents and local cops, to whom he babbled that he was trying to blow up the plane.
via Abdulmutallab Stops Talking After Being Read Miranda Rights – WSJ.com.
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[...] Abdulmutallab as a criminal defendant – a decision that granted the would-be Christmas bomber the right to remain silent after a brief 50-minute interrogation session – the Obama administration this week went on the [...]
This propose has been standard for several years. This matter becomes even more marked.