John Brennan is desperate to make us believe that a vacation from interrogation is the key to making jihadists talk and that those who say otherwise are helping al Qaeda:
In an oped in USA Today, John Brennan -- Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism -- responds to critics of the Obama administration’s counterterrorism policies by saying “Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda.”
[...]
Brennan provides a detailed defense of the administration’s handling of failed Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab whom, he says, was “thoroughly interrogated and provided important information.”
He suggests that many critics are hypocritical and clueless.
The most important breakthrough in the interrogation occurred “after Abdulmutallab was read his rights, which the FBI made standard policy under Michael Mukasey, President Bush’s attorney general,” he writes, noting that failed shoe bomber Richard Reid “was read his Miranda rights five minutes after being taken off a plane he tried to blow up. The same people who criticize the president today were silent back then.”
Brennan said anyone who wants to change the policy would be casting aside lessons learned “in waging this war” on extremists.
“Terrorists such as Jose Padilla and Saleh al-Mari did not cooperate when transferred to military custody, which can harden one’s determination to resist cooperation,” he writes.
Were they waterboarded? (Via Drudge.)
