Posted by
Defend America on Saturday, February 13, 2010 9:48:52 AM
Obama Officials Wrong on Padilla
Al Qaeda terrorist Jose Padilla started talking only after he was designated an enemy combatant.
February 11, 2010 8:35 PM
During an interview on MSNBC Thursday morning,
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs defended the Obama
administration’s handling of Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk
Abdulmutallab. Gibbs argued that the administration was right to treat
Abdulmutallab as a criminal defendant, instead of as an enemy
combatant. “Just because you make somebody an enemy combatant [it]
doesn’t make them talk,” Gibbs argued. He then pointed to an example
from the Bush years to supposedly support his point.
“Jose Padilla was made an enemy combatant so that
we could get him to talk,” Gibbs said. “And guess what happened when we
made him an enemy combatant, he didn't talk. He did talk when he was
transferred back into a civilian court.”
President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, made the same point on Tuesday in an op-ed for USA Today.
Brennan argued: “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.”
Brennan and Gibbs are wrong. In fact, Jose Padilla
only started cooperating once he was transferred into the military’s
custody and interrogated.
http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-officials-wrong-padilla