The Corner at National Review has a post today by Andrew McCarthy about the Obama Administration’s policy toward terrorism. Mr. McCarthy quotes a Wall Street Journal article which listed the successes of enhanced interrogation:
“The most revealing portion of the IG report documents the program’s results. The CIA’s “detention and interrogation of terrorists has provided intelligence that has enabled the identification and apprehension of other terrorists and warned of terrorist plots planned for the United States and around the world.” That included the identification of Jose Padilla and Binyam Muhammed, who planned to detonate a dirty bomb, and the arrest of previously unknown members of an al Qaeda cell in Karachi, Pakistan, designated to pilot an aircraft attack in the U.S. The information also made the CIA aware of plots to attack the U.S. consulate in Karachi, hijack aircraft to fly into Heathrow, loosen track spikes to derail a U.S. train, blow up U.S. gas stations, fly an airplane into a California building, and cut the lines of suspension bridges in New York.”
This report mentions the name Binyam Muhammed (who was planning to detonate a dirty bomb). Mr. McCarthy points out that Binyam Mohammed was released outright by the Obama administration in February. He is now living freely in England.
Mr. McCarthy’s evaluation of the situation:
“…Release the terrorist who planned mass-murder attacks against U.S. cities but investigate the CIA agents who prevented mass-murder attacks against U.S. cities. I suppose that’s what happens when control of the Justice Department shifts from the lawyers who spent the last eight years going after the terrorists to the lawyers who spent the last eight years representing the terrorists. That certainly is Change.”
Just for the record, Andrew McCarthy is a former Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He led the 1995 terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and eleven others for the bombing of the World Trade Center. He has been involved in many areas of anti-terrorism since the 1990’s.