Today in Washington, D.C. - Feb 12, 2010 - Will Obama Change The Policy on Mishandled Terrorist Trials?

Senate and House Were not in session today. The Senate returns on February 22nd, when it will take up a jobs bill (H.R. 2847) with an amendment from Majority Leader Harry Reid likely serving as the basis for debate. A cloture vote on the bill is scheduled for that evening. Yesterday, the Senate confirmed 27 relatively uncontroversial nominees.

The Washington Post reports today, “President Obama is planning to insert himself into the debate about where to try the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, three administration officials said Thursday, signaling a recognition that the administration had mishandled the process and triggered a political backlash. Obama initially had asked Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to choose the site of the trial in an effort to maintain an independent Justice Department. But the White House has been taken aback by the intense criticism from political opponents and local officials of Holder's decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a civilian courtroom in New York.”

It’s troubling that the Obama administration apparently did not anticipate the very reasonable objections from local officials and many other across the political spectrum to trying terrorists in civilian courts. The problems with this approach would seem to be readily apparent: beyond the security expense, the heightened risk of terror attacks, and the fact that terrorists will have a platform to propagandize and grandstand, there are the myriad risks to intelligence and national security presented by civilian trials. And that doesn’t even get into the consequences of extending constitutional protections to foreign enemy combatants.

Americans seem to understand the problems quite well. The Post writes, “According to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, 55 percent of voters say military tribunals should be used to try suspected terrorists, compared with 39 percent who say the civilian court system should be used.” Similarly, >a Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday found by 59%-35%, most Americans said that 9/11 plotters should be tried in military courts. And 68% believed that the 9/11 plotters were not eligible for “constitutional protections” available in civilian trials, while only 25% said they should be. Quinnipiac University Polling Institute Peter Brown said, “When it comes to how suspected terrorists should be treated by the American judicial system there is a significant gap between the American people and President Barack Obama.”

Yet The Washington Post story seems to indicate that much of the opposition to civilian trials for terrorists was not anticipated by the White House when it made the decision. In the Quinnipiac poll respondents overwhelmingly (76%) believe the Christmas Day bomber should be treated as an “enemy combatant” rather than “an ordinary criminal” (19%), but the administration has continued to attempt to justify processing him through the criminal justice system.

In an op-ed for The Washington Post today, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey points out, “There was . . . no legal or policy compulsion to treat [bomber] Abdulmutallab as a criminal defendant, at least initially, and every reason to treat him as an intelligence asset to be exploited promptly.” Mukasey also points out why the administration’s usual pushback doesn’t fly: “Nor is it an answer to say that Abdulmutallab resumed his cooperation even after he was warned of his rights. He did that after five weeks, when his family was flown here from Nigeria. The time was lost, and with it possibly useful information. Disclosing that he had resumed talking only compounded the problem by letting his former cohorts know that they had better cover their tracks.”

The Obama administration needs to seriously reevaluate its approach to the War on Terror. Simply having the president jump in to decide where the 9/11 plotters should be tried is to miss the point entirely.

---

Tags: Barack Obama, domestic terrorists, Gitmo, jobs bill, terrorist trials, US Congress, US House, US Senate, Washington, D.C. To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!