Intelligence chief rips handling of accused plane bomber

WASHINGTON — The nation's intelligence director testified Wednesday that it was a mistake for the government to give the suspected bomber in the Christmas airline plot a reading of his Miranda rights and access to an attorney without first using elite interrogators to question him or consulting with top officials in Washington.

The remark by Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair was an admission that U.S. Justice Department officials squandered a chance to gather valuable intelligence after the failed attack, in addition to committing a series of blunders in the handling of intelligence data that prevented them from stopping the incident.

The Obama administration created the interrogation team last year to replace a CIA program that President Obama dismantled shortly after taking office. Blair said the team should have been used, or at least consulted, after the arrest of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of attempting to take down the Northwest Airlines flight traveling from Amsterdam to Detroit.

"That unit was created exactly for this purpose," Blair testified before the Senate Homeland Security Committee. "We did not invoke the (High Value Interrogation Group) in this case. We should have."

He attributed the breakdown, in part, to a failure among those setting up the interrogation unit to envision scenarios in which the team might be used to question someone captured in the United States.

"Frankly, we were thinking more of overseas people," Blair said. "And, duh ... The decision was made on the scene."

"It's crystal clear to me that somebody in the Department of Justice prematurely decided that they should treat this as a normal criminal case," Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said after the hearing. "Obviously no care and time was spent on this one, it was just, 'Boom!' a decision made quickly — way too quickly in my view."

Blair said the decision to file criminal charges against the suspect in federal court was made by the FBI agent in charge on the scene, "consulting with his headquarters and Department of Justice."

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said it was a costly mistake. "We know that those interrogations can provide critical intelligence," she said. "But the protections afforded by our civil-justice system ... encourage terrorists to lawyer up. I'm told that with Abdulmutallab, once he was 'Mirandized' and received civilian lawyers, that is exactly what he did. He stopped answering questions."

Collins and other lawmakers also questioned the decision to try Abdulmutallab in civilian courts, instead of moving him into military custody to face a tribunal. Abdulmutallab has pleaded not guilty to various charges in federal court in Detroit.

Blair later said that his remarks had been misconstrued and that the FBI had interrogated Abdulmutallab and "received important intelligence at that time."

But he and other top U.S. counterterrorism officials, including Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and FBI Director Robert Mueller, testified that they were never consulted on the decision to give Abdulmutallab access to an attorney or be advised of his right to remain silent.

The chief U.S. immigration investigator in Detroit said Wednesday he had no regrets over how Abdulmutallab was handled at the airport by his agency and the FBI.

Brian Moskowitz, special agent in charge with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said it was critical that agents immediately speak to Abdulmutallab to determine whether "there were other people on other planes planning to do the same."

"It was the right thing to do given our training and the events on the ground. ... Given the facts, I would do it again," Moskowitz told The Associated Press.

Wednesday's disclosure came as a parade of top national-security officials made their first public appearances on Capitol Hill to explain how Abdulmutallab, 23, penetrated the nation's defenses and might have succeeded in bringing down a packed airline had he not been subdued by other passengers after his explosive failed to ignite.

The officials were unanimous in acknowledging that U.S. law-enforcement and intelligence agencies assembled more than enough information before the attack to prevent it.

Abdulmutallab "should not have stepped onto a plane on Christmas Day," said Michael Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center. "The counterterrorism system collectively failed."

Leiter and his organization, which was created after the Sept. 11 attacks specifically to sift through piles of intelligence data to identify and thwart terrorist plots, have been the main targets of criticism.

Administration officials confirmed some new details about the intelligence failures leading up to the Christmas plot. Leiter acknowledged, for example, that the United States had obtained electronic intercepts months before the attack indicating that an individual with the partial name Umar Farouk was linked to al-Qaida operatives in Yemen.

The National Security Agency, which collects electronic signals across the globe, had also learned that al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the Yemen-based offshoot is named, was planning an operation using a Nigerian.

Separately, Abdulmutallab's father had approached the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria to warn CIA officials there that his son had disappeared in Yemen and was espousing increasingly anti-U.S. beliefs.

The younger Abdulmutallab purchased a round-trip fare with cash in Nigeria, and boarded a connecting flight in Amsterdam bound for Detroit without any luggage. Magnetic screeners failed to detect a chemical explosive he had sewn into his underwear.

Abdulmutallab was detained on Christmas and cooperated under initial questioning before he was formally charged and given access to an attorney one day later.

Information from The Associated Press is included.