Obama Defends Plan to Prosecute Terrorists in Civilian Courts

Battered by revelation after revelation of security breaches in the Christmas Day bomber attack, President Obama insisted Thursday he fully understands that America is at war with al Qaida -- but refused to back down from treating jihadists as criminal suspects rather than enemy combatants.

Earlier in the day White House spokesman Robert Gibbs admitted: "We had in our possession information that likely could have prevented or disrupted the incident on the 25th of December from happening."

Obama echoed that in his remarks, stating: "As president, I have a solemn responsibility to protect our nation and our people, and when the system fails, it is my responsibility."

The presidential mea culpa appeared designed to reassure the public that Obama is serious about fixing the nation's vulnerability to terrorism, while trying to give the administration a pivot point to refocus attention on healthcare and the economy.

The administration has struggled to control its agenda ever since 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab paid cash for a ticket, boarded an international Northwest Flight 253 without any luggage, and tried to ignite a bomb hidden in his underwear.

Security officials say the device could have brought down the jet with 300 passengers and crew.

The embarrassing disclosures continued Thursday. Homeland Security officials stated they determined Abdulmutallab was a potential threat while the flight was en route.

Apparently, no effort was made to alert the crew.

Also, earlier in the day the administration rushed to the defense of embattled National Counterterrorism Center chief Michael Leiter, whose job was thought to be at risk until the president indicated in his remarks that he isn't interested in blaming any individual. But in the process of defending Leiter, the administration admitted it gave him permission to go on a six-day ski vacation after news had broken of the attempted bombing.

In his remarks, the president also sought to mute criticism that his administration has de-emphasized the war on terror.

"We are at war," Obama confirmed. "We are at war against al-Qaida, a far-reaching network of violence and hatred that attacked us on 9/11, that killed nearly 3,000 innocent people, and that is plotting to strike us again. And we will do whatever it takes to defeat them."

While the president's security directives ranged from reviewing visa criteria to enhanced screening technology to better prioritization of intelligence leads, Obama did not address a primary distinction between acts of war and crimes: Whether to try suspects in criminal court with lawyers at their sides, or label them enemy combatants and squeeze them for any information they might have that could thwart future acts of terrorism.

In an exclusive Newsmax interview, counterterrorism expert and 22-year CIA veteran Michael F. Scheuer told Newsmax that Obama continues to shift U.S. policy back to the pre-9/11 approach to combating terror, when perpetrators of attacks against the United States were prosecuted criminally, with an emphasis on law enforcement over intelligence gathering.

"What they're doing is returning to Clinton's law and order-oriented foreign policy … they're going to put these people through the U.S. legal system come hell or high water," Scheuer told Newsmax.
That view was echoed Thursday by former top Bush adviser Karl Rove. Speaking on Fox News Channel, Rove said it was a mistake to focus exclusively on the failure to prevent the attack."

"To me the problems are equally bad in the aftermath of it," Rove said. "The biggest judgment failure in my mind was the immediate decision by Holder and others to treat the Christmas Day bomber as a criminal defendant, not as an enemy combatant. We had a fresh person who could reveal immediate information about ties to al Qaida, the people who set him in motion, and we should have gotten that information and not allowed him to lawyer up. That to me is indicative of a pre-9/11 mindset."

According to Scheuer, who for many years led the CIA unit tasked with tracking down Osama bin Laden, trying jihadists as criminal offenders "completely" degrades the ability to squeeze them for information regarding new al-Qaida plots and tactics that might endanger Americans.

"The Christmas bomber was not a criminal, he was a warrior… in every aspect except the uniform and belonging to a nation-state," he said. "With all the call for change recently, we haven't been able to come to grips with the fact that we have an enemy that's almost as powerful as a nation state, and we haven't found a way to deal with it except with the legal system. And of course the legal system gives Mr. Abdulmutallab the same rights that I have under the Constitution -- which is something that I've never been able to understand, but when you say something about it you're accused of being a racist."

Obama also used his speech to take another thinly veiled swipe at the Bush administration, suggesting it had compromised ethical principals in its aggressive disruption of terror -- policies that blocked any successful terrorist attack on U.S. soil after 9/11.

"But we will not succumb to a siege mentality that sacrifices the open society and liberties and values that we cherish as Americans," Obama said, "because great and proud nations don't hunker down and hide behind walls of suspicion and mistrust. That is exactly what our adversaries want, and so long as I am president, we will never hand them that victory."

Yet Scheuer said the president's remarks effectively showed that the failed Christmas attack was a victory for al-Qaida.

"The president confirmed he's going to spend more and more billions on air security, which will both hurt us budget-wise, and almost certainly slow down air travel," Scheuer said. "With al Qaida's goal of ultimately bankrupting us, and terrorizing Americans psychologically, and suggesting their government can't protect them, I think the Christmas Day bombing had everything but blood, and he completed their success tonight."

Scheuer, who has also criticized the Bush administration's approach to fighting the war on terror, predicted that intelligence personnel will feel the president's directives make it even more difficult to effectively analyze the massive flow of intelligence now being received.

"His stress on following every lead will be understood in the intelligence community as: No matter how stupid a piece of information is, you're going to have some officer spend time following it, just to protect your behind.

"What he has done is removed one of the most important functions of the line manager, a manager who always has limited resources, and has to take whatever leads come in, whatever threats come in, and say … let's concentrate on this one," Scheuer said. "Now we're going to have people following really ridiculous types of leads just to avoid being the one whose head gets chopped off."

Whether the president's directives to tighten security will quell the cries for heads to roll remains to be seen. Syndicated columnist and author Patrick J. Buchanan told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Thursday, "I think somebody's got to be held accountable. And I would guess as of now just look at it from afar, it's going to be in Admiral Blair's shop in that National Counterterrorism Unit."

Buchanan added, "If everybody walks off scott free -- 'Well, we fouled up' -- then I think the president would be legitimately criticized for that."