Top Obama Aide Defends Use of Criminal Trial for Would-Be Plane Bomber

President Obama's top counterterrorism adviser today defended the administration's decision to put the Nigerian man who tried to bomb a Detroit-bomb airplane on trial in a criminal court rather than charge charge him as an enemy combatant given his ties to an al Qaeda group based in Yemen.

John Brennan, deputy national security adviser, also said that the administration would press ahead with the closing of the Guantanamo detainee facility where more than 90 Yemenis are still being held, and that as part of the administration's plan to close the base, some may still be sent back to Yemen despite concerns about that country's ability to make sure they don't join up with al Qaeda.

About 40 Yemeni detainees have been cleared for release, but the administration last month decided to limit the number of returns to six because of those concerns.

During Sunday's round of morning news shows, Brennan was pressed to explain why the administration did not view Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as an enemy combatant given that he traveled to Yemen to join al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula and was trained, equipped and directed by the group to carry out the Christmas Day attack on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

Brennan pointed to a series of successful prosecutions of "other terrorists" in civilian courts including Richard Reid, the so-called "shoe bomber" who tried to blow up an international flight in 2001; Zacarias Moussaoui, accused of involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks; Iyam Faris, accused of aiding al Qaeda in a polot to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge; and, Jose Padilla, convicted of taking part in a Qaeda plot to detonate a dirty bomb in the U.S.

"We try to adapt the tools in the right way," Brennan said on CNN's State of the Union. "We are also a country of laws. This was an individual who was arrested on U.S. soil. If we decide at some point that we're going to charge and hold somebody under the enemy combatant status, it's a tool that is available to us. We made a decision to do this. "

"We have great confidence in the FBI and other individuals in terms of debriefing. We have great confidence in our court system so that we can use that to our advantage," he said. "And individuals in the past have, in fact, given us very valuable information as they've gone through the plea agreement process."

But Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, called the decision "a very serious mistake."

"President Obama said yesterday, Abdulmutallab was trained by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, equipped by Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, and directed by them to get on that plane and attack the United States of America," Lieberman said on ABC's This Week. "That was an act of war. He should be treated as a prisoner of war. He should be held in a military brig...He should be questioned now and should have been ever since he was apprehended for intelligence that could help us stop the next attack or get the people in Yemen who directed him to do what he did. Yes, we should follow the rule of law, but the rule of law that is relevant here is the rule of the law of war."

That view was echoed by Sen. Kit Bond, R-Missouri, who said on Fox News Sunday, "Any criminal lawyer has to tell him he has to be quiet, he has to shut up until months from now. Maybe years from now, they come forth with a deal saying, 'Well, if you'll tell us who your handlers were, who the other people were, we will limit you -- limit your charges.'"

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, said on CNN, "If we had treated this Christmas Day bomber as a terrorist, he would have immediately been interrogated military-style, rather than given the rights of an American and lawyers. We probably lost valuable information."

On the issue of returning Yemeni detainees held at Guantanamo to Yemen, Brennan said on CNN that several of the detainees recently returned there were immediately put into custody by the Yemenis. "We are making sure that we don't do anything that is going to put American citizens, whether they be in Yemen or here in the States, at risk by our decisions about releasing -- transferring these detainees."

Asked whether the administration was changing its mind about returning any more of the detainees to Yemen, and might instead send them to a prison in Illinois that the federal government would purchase, Brennan said "We haven't stopped the process as far as dealing with them. Many of them are going to be prosecuted, some under the Article III courts, and some in military courts. Some of these individuals are going to be transferred back to Yemen at the right time and the right pace and in the right way."

That was met with skepticism on both sides of the aisle.

Democratic Rep. Jane Harman, who chairs the intelligence subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee, said on ABC she supported plans to close Guantanamo, but said, " but I also believe we should review again where we're going to send the detainees. I think it is a bad time to send the ... Yemenis back to Yemen."

Missouri's Bond said, "if we don't stop the practice of releasing Gitmo detainees to Yemen or to other countries -- and some of them came through Yemen through Saudi Arabia -- we're asking for even more trouble. And I think there ought to be an immediate halt put to releases from Gitmo."

Michael Hayden, CIA Director under the Bush administration, urged the Obama administration not to stick to a rigid timeline on Guantanamo that would force decisions on where to transfer its detainees.

Speaking on NBC's Meet the Press, Hayden acknowledged that some of the 532 detainees released from Guantanamo during the Bush years had re-emerged in terrorist roles and said, "We made some mistakes ... some people that we decided to release in our best judgment at the time have returned to the fight. that should be a cautionary tale for President Obama's administration."