Many people in Washington are asking the question of who decided to charge Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as a common criminal rather than an enemy combatant.  Abdulmutallab is the accused terrorist who was arrested for the Christmas Day bombing attempt on a Northwest Airlines jet.

It only makes sense that as Abdulmutallab was al-Qaida trained, had an al-Qaida crafted bomb, and was dispatched by al-Qaida to crash the plane, that he should be treated as a terrorist. Instead, someone made the decision to have him read the Miranda warning and then provided a government-paid attorney for him. This gave him the right to stay silent and keep the United States from getting some potentially valuable information from him. This information could have been gained by military interrogation.

The people who DON’T know the answer to who made this decision is a long list, including the National Counterterrorism Center, the Director of National Intelligence, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Head of the FBI. None of these people were consulted about what should happen with Abdulmutallab.

Judiciary Committee Republicans believe they know the answer. They are quite sure that it is Attorney General Eric Holder, who has made some questionable decisions regarding terrorism in the past. They were upset about the decision even before it was known that the major administrative people knew nothing about it. Now these lawmakers are demanding to know what went wrong here, and feel that Holder is the only one with the answer.

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