Christmas Day Bomber Talking To Authorities Again Plus Robert Gibbs Is An Idiot And/Or Liar

Better late than never, I suppose.

The family of the failed Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouq Abdulmuttalab, played a pivotal role in getting their son to start cooperating with federal authorities in sharing information about Al Qaeda, a senior administration official said Tuesday evening.

Abdulmuttalab has been cooperating with authorities and sharing intelligence since last Thursday, another administration official told ABC News.

The family was “instrumental in gaining Mr. Abdulmuttalab’s cooperation," said the senior administration official. The information Abdulmuttalab is sharing has been described by other officials as fresh and actionable.

“It has been very successful," the official said, "as far as gaining his cooperation that will allow us then to follow up on that information." He said the intelligence gained "has been disseminated throughout the intelligence community."

Of course the administration and it's Amen Corner in the press and Congress will point to this and claim vindication for it's 'play by the rules' law enforcement plan.

There's only a couple of problems with that.

First, awesome and all but relying on the family of a terrorist to help gather intelligence isn't exactly a sure fire strategy. The fact that this guy's dad gave him up beforehand shows how extraordinary a case this is. There are huge numbers of examples of everyday Americans who won't help authorities put their family members behind bars for ordinary crime. Does anyone think we can rely on this type of cooperation every time?

Second, Abdulmuttalab began talking over a month after the attack. Do we really have that kind of time to waste? Considering the top counter terrorism officials in the administration said yesterday it's a virtual certainty that there will be another attempted attack within the next 3-6 months, I'd so we don't.

This idea that our 'good behavior' has earned us cooperation and that we can count on this kind of support in the future is nothing but a hope.

Oh by the way...what exactly are we learning from the guy now? Robert Gibbs assured us that we learned everything we could and needed from Abdulmuttalab in the 50 minutes the FBI had with him on Christmas Day. I guess that wasn't exactly, strictly speaking, true.

posted by DrewM. at 11:11 AM

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