Check Your Panties

The Washington Post reports today that “authorities are inching toward an agreement that would secure cooperation from the suspect in the failed Detroit airliner attack.” Inching is the operative word here. It’s been over a month now that this terrorist has been exercising his “right to remain silent.” Each day that goes by when he does not talk is an outrage.

The Post adds that “public defenders for the Nigerian student are engaged in negotiations that could result in an agreement to share more information and eventually a guilty plea, the sources said. Negotiations could still collapse before the next scheduled court date, in April, the sources said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.”

April? Negotiations “could still collapse”? Are they kidding?

What Obama officials don’t seem to understand is that the intelligence Abdulmutallab has is perishable. He was supposed to be vaporized with the plane when it exploded. As soon as al-Qaeda learned he had survived, they began shutting down e-mail accounts, bank accounts, moving and hiding operatives, and closing the intelligence trails he could lead us down. Every second, every minute, every day he did not talk resulted in lost counterterrorism opportunities. If he starts talking three months from now, that’s not good enough.

The Post also reports that Abdulmutallab “clammed up even before he was informed of his right to remain silent” and suggests this “complicates” the GOP narrative that reading him his rights cost us valuable intelligence. To the contrary, it complicates the narrative from the White House that they got all the valuable intelligence they needed from him before reading him his rights. And it makes the case stronger that coercive interrogations might have been necessary to get the information we needed from him.

The more we learn about this incident, the more outrageous the story becomes.

— Marc Thiessen’s new book is Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack.