Eric Holder
In his first face-to-face with television reporters since the failed Christmas Day bomb attack, Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday tried to extinguish the heated debate in Washington over how terrorism suspects should be handled.
“We are at war against a very dangerous and intelligent and adaptable enemy, and we must use every weapon available to us in order to win that war,” Holder said in prepared remarks, as he announced that Najibullah Zazi, the Colorado airport shuttle driver accused of trying to launch a bomb plot in New York City last year, had pleaded guilty to terrorism charges. “The criminal justice system has proved to be an invaluable weapon for disrupting plots and incapacitating terrorists … [and it] contains powerful incentives to induce pleas that yield long sentences and that gain intelligence that can be used in the fight — in the war — against Al Qaeda.”
His remarks at a late-afternoon press conference included not-so-subtle references to a larger debate over whether the 9/11 case and that of Umar F. Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian who allegedly tried to blow up a jetliner over Detroit on Christmas Day, should be tried in the federal court system.
Many on Capitol Hill, particularly Republicans, are calling for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other alleged 9/11 conspirators to face a military commission, as the same critics blast the decision — made within 24 hours of his capture — to read Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights and prosecute him in federal court.
During questioning after his prepared remarks on Monday, Holder accused his critics of playing politics.
“To take this tool out of our hands — to denigrate the use of this tool — flies in the face of the facts, flies in the face of the history of the use of this tool, and is more about politics than it is about facts,” he said. “This [the Zazi guilty plea] is a demonstration of the facts. This is not some kind of partisan, political attempt to shape something for the purposes of an election.”
Nevertheless, Holder declined to say whether the recent debate over anti-terrorism practices has ruled out New York City — his original plan — as the venue for the trial of the 9/11 case.
“We are in the process of trying to determine where the case will be tried,” he said, also declining to rule out military commissions as an option. “We’re looking at all options. That conversation goes on within the administration, and also with local officials.”
He said a decision would be made “relatively soon,” but he also insisted the public should not “make more of these people than they are.”
“Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the others … are thugs,” he said. “They are people engaged in criminal and war-like activities against the United States, but they are not people who are different from those we have shown an ability to handle in the past, and I think we’ll have ability to handle safely in the future.”
Asked whether his Justice Department would do anything differently if someone like Abdulmutallab were captured in the near future, Holder insisted decisions have to be made on a case-by-case basis.
“We have to trust the people who are on the scene, who have to make split-second decisions as to how they’re going to interact with a suspect, what’s the most effective way they can interrogate that person, what’s the most effective means by which they can gather intelligence and information from that person,” he said. “I have great faith in the men and women of the FBI and other intelligence agencies who have been trained in interrogation, trained in counterterrorism techniques, steeped in knowledge of Al Qaeda and other terrorists groups that would do us harm.”
In fact, he said, authorities have been obtaining “very useful” information from Abdulmutallab in recent weeks. Holder declined to offer more details.
Back on the news of the day, Holder called the bomb plot by Afghanistan-born Zazi “one of the most serious terrorist threats to our nation since Sept. 11, 2001.”
“Were it not for the combined efforts of the law enforcement and intelligence communities, it could have been devastating,” Holder said. “This attemped attack on our homeland was real. It was in motion, and it would have been deadly. … There is no doubt that American lives were saved.”
Zazi went to Pakistan in August 2008 with plans to join the Taliban in Afghanistan, but “shortly after arriving” in Pakistan he was recruited by Al Qaeda to join their ranks and taken to an al Qaeda stronghold in the region, according to Holder.
Al Qaeda members “urged him to launch a suicide attack in the United States,” and “he agreed to do so,” learning how to build and detonate bombs, Holder said.
In January 2009, Zazi moved to Denver, where he gathered the components necessary to launch a bomb attack on the New York City subway system, Holder said. Zazi was hoping to carry out his plot sometime between Sept. 14 and Sept. 16, 2009, but federal authorities thwarted his plans, Holder said.
Earlier in the day, Zazi pleaded guilty in the Eastern District of New York to three federal charges, namely conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country, and providing material support to al Qaeda.
Zazi could spend the rest of his life in prison.