Lessons Of The Christmas Bombing Plot
by Stuart Taylor, Jr.
Dick Cheney has it backward. The problem with President Obama’s counter-terrorism policy isn’t its (rather limited) divergence from the Bush-Cheney approach. The problem is Obama’s emulation of one of the biggest Bush-Cheney mistakes.
That is relying too much on unilateral presidential power and judicial improvisation rather than seeking new legislation — as two notable judicial opinions have recently urged — to legitimize and regulate the detention and interrogation of terrorism suspects outside the ordinary criminal process.
The case of the Nigerian who authorities say tried to blow up an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day has helped expose two reasons why this presidential unilateralism is intolerable.
First, treating terrorism suspects captured in America as ordinary criminal defendants from the moment of arrest unnecessarily rules out aggressive, incommunicado interrogation that might disrupt other plots and thus save lives. New legislation could legitimize questioning such people without lawyers for a limited period (maybe 10 days, or longer in exceptional cases) before launching the criminal process.
Second, Obama’s January 5 suspension of the transfer of Guantanamo Bay prisoners to Yemen — where the Christmas bombing plot was hatched — is the latest sign that he will perpetuate for years the George W. Bush-created regime of long-term detention without trial. Obama acted even though he has recognized this approach to be inconsistent with "our values and our Constitution" unless legitimized by careful congressional, as well as judicial, oversight.
The attacks by Cheney and other conservative critics on the administration’s handling of the case of would-be bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab focus on the decision to treat him as an ordinary criminal defendant, with the usual Miranda rights, lawyers counseling silence, and all the rest.