Author: Mike Levine

DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano was on the hot seat today… for not being on the hot seat today.

The House Homeland Security Committee held a hearing today looking at the failed Christmas Day bombing and its larger implications – at least the fourth such hearing on Capitol Hill in a week.

Last Wednesday, Napolitano testified before the Senate Commerce Committee in the afternoon. That morning she testified to the Senate Homeland Security Committee, while her chief policy adviser, David Heyman, simultaneously testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

But Napolitano was not at today’s hearing, and Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee were not happy.

Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) took aim at Napolitano right away.

“I’d like to welcome our witnesses but comment on the absence of Secretary Napolitano,” Harman said in her opening remarks. “This is the committee with primary jurisdiction over the Department of Homeland Security. She is the Secretary of Homeland Security. She is in Washington, D.C., she was invited to testify at this very important hearing, and she should have been here.”

Instead, DHS Deputy Secretary Jane Holl Lute testified on behalf of Napolitano’s department.

But DHS officials insisted the criticism from Harman and others was unwarranted.

“It’s unfortunate that these Members have chosen to raise this today,” DHS spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said in a statement. “[Lute’s participation] was agreed upon two weeks ago, and no concerns were raised in the multiple conversations and briefings that the Secretary, Deputy Secretary and other staff have had with [House Homeland Security Committee] Members and staff since then.”

In fact, one DHS official told FOX News, Napolitano spoke via phone to Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) last night, debriefing him on her recent trip to Europe, where she discussed boosting aviation security with her European counterparts.

During that conversation, Thompson never raised any issues with her about today’s hearing, the official said.

Another DHS official said Napolitano initially declined the offer to testify today due to an expected scheduling conflict, but that conflict ultimately didn’t materialize. In the meantime, Lute made sure she was “very well-prepared” for today’s hearing, according to the official.

A spokesman for Thompson said, “The Chairman was pleased with the testimony he received today, including the frank and open testimony from Dr. Lute.”

Still, it won’t be long before Napolitano is back on Capitol Hill.

“The Secretary is ready and willing to appear before Congress, as evidenced by her two testimonies last week and four additional hearings at which she will appear in early February,” Kudwa said.

Thompson’s spokesman said Napolitano will be testifying before the House Homeland Security Committee at an upcoming budget hearing.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have launched what they call “the largest operation of its kind in our agency’s history,” rounding up more than 470 gang members, gang associates and others across the country in one week.

The crackdown, dubbed Project Big Freeze, had a “particular focus” on “transnational gangs” and their associates inside the United States illegally, ICE chief John Morton told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday.

Listen to Morton talk more about that at Tuesday’s press conference:

 

Transnational gangs are often involved in drug, weapons and even human smuggling, and like any gang they “have a propensity toward violence,” ICE said in a statement.

Nearly half of those arrested in Project Big Freeze are members or associates of major gangs based in Mexico, South America or Asia.

In addition, of the 476 arrested more than 360 are foreign nationals who now face deportation, but some of them may be prosecuted inside the United States first, according to ICE.

Project Big Freeze was “months” in the making, with a “surge” of arrests last week in 83 cities across the country, according to Morton.

At Tuesday’s press conference, Morton was joined by Dallas Police Assistant Chief Charles Cato and Barry Fritz, chief of police in Richmond, Minn., just outside Minneapolis.

“This operation worked, and worked well, because it involved the direct participation of local law enforcement,” Morton said, adding that federal agencies such as the Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also played an integral role.

“While Richfield is not a hotbed of transnational gangs, we certainly have them in the [Minneapolis] metro area,” which creates gang activity in his community, Fritz said.

In fact, half of the criminal activity his officers encounter is related to transnational gangs, including a recent drive-by shooting in Richfield, according to Fritz.

Noting the financial stresses being felt by police departments across the country, Fritz said that if it weren’t for ICE “a local department like us simply wouldn’t have” the ability to adequately combat transnational gang activity.

Specifically, he said, ICE is a “force multiplier” with the legal ability to operate in nearby jurisdictions, where his department does not have authority.

As for Cato, he described Dallas as a “transnational hub for narcotics” coming into the United States from South America, and he said operations like Project Big Freeze have been “an integral part” of reducing related violence.

In 2004, his city had 248 homicides, 85 percent of which had a “nexus” to gangs, drugs or guns, according to Cato. Last year, Dallas counted 166 homicides, the lowest level since 1967, when Dallas had half the population it has now, Cato said.

Listen to Cato talk more about the impact of operations like Project Big Freeze on violent criminals:

The “urgency” felt by other nations about terrorism may have “dissipated over time” since the 9/11 attacks, but the recent Christmas Day attack has “renewed” that “sense of urgency,” and now is the time to take advantage of it, according to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

Napolitano, just back from a weekend of meetings overseas with her European  counterparts, said there is now an unprecedented “consensus” among European countries that something needs to be done to boost security at airports and elsewhere.

“One of the differences [now] is urgency and international recognition that the terrorists will look for any gap they can find in the system,” she told reporters in Washington on Tuesday. “Now we need to use this as an opportunity, as a catalyst as it were, for international efforts.”

Napolitano said that, before Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to blow up a U.S.-bound flight over Detroit, the international community had agreed to work together to fight terrorism, but the consensus was “not at the level we are talking about.”

There is a “recognition by these nations that there were passengers from [at least] 17 countries on Flight 253, all of whom would have perished if Abdulmutallab had been successful,” according to Napolitano.

But she said preventing attacks like the failed Christmas Day bombing requires a different approach than stopping attacks like the 9/11 plot, which she described as “a large-scale conspiracy involving the takeover of airplanes and then flying them as weapons into buildings.”

The Christmas Day plot “was a very different kind of thing from a detection, information-sharing [and] passenger-vetting type of environment,” she said. “So that is why it is necessary to use December 25 as the catalyst in saying, ‘Nations of the world, we all have an interest in this. The international aviations system is international in every respect. It is only as strong as its weakest link. We need to get together this year, right now, and move to get the agreements that have been discussed for years.’”

She said governments around the world — including those of the Netherlands, England, France and Germany –- have recently initiated steps to add whole-body imaging, more K-9 teams and other security measures at their airports.

“When [the] system has its weak links, we must address them without delay,” she said.

Asked whether the privacy laws of European countries could be an obstacle to U.S. security and information-sharing efforts, Napolitano said the United States and European countries can reach agreements “in a way that deals with their privacy issues.”

“Discussions we had in Europe were not only [about] getting information but standardizing the kind of information that we get,” she said, adding that discussions she had over the weekend focused on being able to identify passengers ahead of time and being able to “run passenger lists against the terrorist watch list, the no-fly lis, and the like.”

She said there’s only so much the U.S. government can do without help from international partners.

“Our department, despite its name, is not solely responsible for this effort,” she said, adding that it’s a military, intelligence, law enforcement and “diplomatic” effort.

She said the role of DHS is to protect air travelers, prevent illegal entry, enforce immigration laws and utilize local law enforcement as “force multipliers.”

“We don’t do screenings at international airports, just as we don’t prepare the no-fly list — we receive the no-fly list,” she said.

However, according to one U.S. official, DHS now has greater ability to recommend that authorities in other countries interview specific passengers before allowing them to board planes.

Before the Christmas Day attack, DHS was able to recommend “secondary screening” for people on the “no-fly list” and “selectee list.” But DHS was unable to recommend “secondary screening” for people on the broader “TIDE” database, which has nearly 500,000 names on it. That has now been changed, according to the U.S. official.

Napolitano alluded to this change on Tuesday.

“One of the things we have done is taken a particular part of the State Department’s database … which is where had that [information] been available in Amsterdam [before the attemped attack] Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab would have been pulled aside for secondary questioning, or we would have recommended to the Dutch that they pull him aside for secondary questioning,” she said. “We have now pushed that particular kind of information out internationally.”

Asked whether DHS itself has a “renewed sense of urgency” about terrorism, Napolitano insisted that terrorism has always been her department’s “top priority.”

“The attempted attack on the 25th of December was a powerful illustration that terrorists will stop at nothing to kill Americans and that counterterrorism remains our top priority,” she said. “This administration is determined to thwart those plans.”

FOX News has obtained exclusive photos of a truck convoy taking relief supplies from the Dominican Republic into Haiti. (Photos are below.)

Each day a convoy, escorted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and State Department officials, brings food and other supplies to the Haitian capital of Port au Prince – driving along what one official describes as “the only land route supply line into the country.”

It’s a 16-hour trek to Port au Prince and back. To get there, the convoy must pass through the Jimani port of entry at the Dominican Republic-Haiti border.

“Getting those convoys in is a big deal,” said one U.S. official. “You can only land so much with planes [at the airport], and you’ve got tens of thousands or more who are sick and in need.”

ICE, whose stated mission is to enforce U.S. immigration and customs laws, has “useful service and expertise” it can offer a major relief effort, according to ICE spokesman Brian Hale.

“We want to help,” Hale said. “Immediately after the earthquake, ICE was able to respond by putting a team on the ground in the Dominican Republic to provide logistical support for much needed supply convoys driving fuel and other material into Haiti.”

Hale said ICE’s “years of fostering positive international relationships” proved “critical” to helping Haitians after the devastating earthquake.

“As an agency with a strong international presence, we were able to draw upon our years of experience within the Caribbean region and leverage our relationships with partner nations to get on scene and start working right away to help the citizens of Haiti.”

In the growing debate over whether – or when – alleged “underwear bomber” Umar F. Abdulmuttallab should have been charged in federal civilian court, the case of “shoe bomber” Richard Reid keeps popping up.

But how congruent is Reid’s case to that of Abdulmutallab? Does it offer any insight into what information can be gleaned from an FBI interview right after an attempted attack? And does it show how Miranda warnings play into all of this?

Both Abdulmutallab and Reid are not U.S. citizens, both are self-professed associates of al Qaeda, both tried unsuccessfully to blow up U.S.-bound aircraft around the Christmas holiday, and both were stopped by vigilant passengers.

Hoping to address the latest debate, Justice Department spokesman Matt Miller mentioned Reid in a statement last week.

“Al Qaeda terrorists such as Richard Reid … and others have all been prosecuted in federal court,” Miller’s statement said.

In fact, at a press conference in January 2002 after Reid was indicted for his attempted bombing, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft was asked whether the Bush administration considered using a military tribunal to prosecute Reid.

Ashcroft said the facts of the case were “very clear.”

“You know, the facts as developed in this case were a result of this alert vigilance and participation of the American public,” he said. “I think people were alert, and that created a factual basis for the kind of court case that we’ve alleged.”

Ashcroft said he conferred with the Defense Department and its general counsel, and “they had no objection to our proceeding in this matter.”

Speaking about the latest debate, Miller’s statement last week said, “Those who now argue that a different action should have been taken in this case were notably silent when dozens of terrorists were successfully prosecuted in federal court by the previous administration.”

Miller insisted that Abdulmutallab “has already provided intelligence, and we will continue to work to gather intelligence from him.” And, appearing on “Fox News Sunday” over the weekend, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the 23-year-old Nigerian was read his Miranda rights only after FBI interrogators got “all” of the intelligence “they could out of him.”

But Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO), Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters last week that he is “particularly concerned that Mirandizing and providing a lawyer to Abdulmutallab may have cut off valuable information.”

“He would have been a very valuable potential source for learning more about the operations in Yemen,” Bond said.

In the Reid case, court documents from the time show that during FBI questioning Reid offered information about his motives and his planning, and he established himself as an al Qaeda operative. But – even though Reid provided information useful to prosecutors building a case against him – it’s unclear whether he provided information useful to intelligence officers trying to prevent more terrorist attacks.

Within five minutes of American Airlines Flight 63 landing in Boston, Reid was taken into custody by four Massachusetts State Police officers and read his Miranda rights – something that would happen at least two more times.

At first Reid – a British citizen – was not that cooperative. A Massachusetts State Police officer “began asking defendant various questions, and defendant responded by giving noncommittal answers,” court documents filed by Reid’s attorneys said.

“The trooper asked defendant what his name was. Defendant said that his name could be gotten from his passport. The trooper asked where defendant was from. Defendant said only that he was from Europe. The trooper asked what had happened on the plane and what defendant had tried to do. Defendant asked several times why no media were present and there was a short discussion about whether the event was a ‘big deal’ or not. At some point, defendant said: ‘You’ll see, you’ll see.’ Defendant then terminated the discussion by saying: ‘I have nothing else to say,’” according to court documents.

Reid was then taken to a Massachusetts State police station, where he was again informed of his rights to remain silent and obtain a lawyer, the documents filed by Reid’s lawyers said.

Three hours later, before FBI interrogators began their own interview with Reid, they again informed him of his Miranda rights.

“A long interview began,” according to court documents. After about 50 minutes, medical personnel tried to treat Reid, but FBI agents “would not stop the interview” because “defendant ‘was being so forthcoming,’” court documents said.

In that interview, “Reid stated that although born to a Catholic mother and a Protestant father, he converted to Islam during his early twenties,” according to court documents filed by the government. “He also explained his motivation for attempting to bomb Flight 63 by stating that the United States should not be involved in Muslim affairs such as supporting Israel. He stated that democratic countries are ruled contrary to God’s will. He further stated that ‘America is the problem, without America there would be no Israel.’ He explained that, in his view, America is responsible for supporting Israel and other illicit regimes throughout the Middle East. He also stated that ‘America must remove its troops from our soil and keep its nose out of our business.’ When asked why he didn’t consider peaceful methods to accomplish his goals, Reid replied that ‘people tried peaceful methods for seventy years.’”

FBI agents questioned Reid even more the next day.

“In his second interview, Reid stated that he chose to attack an airplane because he believed an airplane attack, especially during the holiday season, would cause the American public to lose confidence in airline security and stop traveling, leading to a substantial loss of revenue which would in turn hurt the American economy,” court documents said. “Reid further stated that he switched his target from Israel to America after America began bombing the Taliban in Afghanistan (in October 2001), which made him very angry.”

Reid also told interrogators that the idea of placing explosives in his shoes came from his observations of Israeli airline security while in the Middle East, including the fact that security personnel did not check the insides of his shoes, court documents said.

After Reid agreed to plead guilty to federal terrorism charges, the lead prosecutor at the time, U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan, insisted the case provided important information.

“Without the heightened awareness of shoe bombs caused by Reid’s unsuccessful bombing attempt, al Qaeda would have been free to repeatedly use the same devices to destroy more commercial aircraft,” Sullivan said in one court filing in January 2003.

In another filing, Sullivan said the Reid case “has been a showcase for the efficient and fair administration of justice in a high-profile terrorism case commenced at the height of America’s War on Terrorism.”

“This [federal] Court has previously commended the Department of Justice for choosing to prosecute Reid within the criminal justice system, with all of its procedural safeguards, including the public nature of the proceedings,” Sullivan said. “As a result, not only the American public, but the entire world, has been able to follow the administration of justice in this case.”