The FBI takedown of Zazi's planned "martyrdomoperation" began soon after police stopped him on his way into New York City lastSeptember. Using lawfully authorized search-and-surveillance techniques, agentsquickly established that he was putting together the components for the samekind of explosiveknown as TATPthat had been used in the London subwaybombings. The Al Qaeda conspiracy to attack the New York subways, with the hapless Zazi as asuicide bomber, was extinguished.
Following his arrest, Zazi obtained counsel and,like many criminal defendants, seemed to be preparing to go to trial. Then camethe drumbeat of criticism from the right, led by former officials of the Bushadministration. Former White House press secretary Dana Perino declared in the National Review that the Zazi caseprovided a "cautionary tale" because the surveillance had beenaborted, the case blown and the investigation ended "prematurely."
According to Perino, the suspect had lawyered up and"stopped talking." Without applying instruments of torture, sheworried, "any further cooperation Zazi may provide is up to him and hislawyer." If only the Obama administration had declared Zazi to be an"enemy combatant" and applied "so-called enhanced interrogationtechniques" to him, the results would have been far better.
The same complaints were heard, predictably, fromformer prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, another frequent commentator in the right-wingmedia, who charged that the FBI and the New York City Police Department hadsomehow botched the Zazi probe. As of last fall, such critics were predictingthat the case would conclude with minor charges against the defendants,including Zaziand a lost opportunity to pursue important investigative leadsagainst Al Qaeda operatives both here and abroad.
Guilty Plea Plus Confession Leads to WiderInvestigation
The mistakes were made not by the FBI, however, butby its critics, whose dire predictions turned out to be entirely erroneous. Notonly did Zazi plead guilty this week and detail the entire conspiracy in hisconfession, but he and at least one of his uncles, indicted in a separatesealed proceeding, are evidently cooperating in what Attorney General EricHolder has described as an "ongoing investigation."
A hint of the contours of that investigation couldbe found in the Justice Department's summary of the case against Zazi. Itexplains that although he had traveled to Pakistanwith the intention of joining the Taliban, he was "recruited by Al Qaeda" shortly after arriving there and taken to Waziristanfor terror training. His indictment for conspiracy to commit murder in aforeign country suggests that Zazi is talking about the individuals who trainedand indoctrinated him and the places where that occurred.
Not surprisingly, the same caustic critics who triedto use the Zazi case to demand tribunals and torture instead of constitutionaljustice are paying scant attention to the outcome. But the attorney generalspoke out clearly and convincingly about the broader meaning of this case whenthe defendant entered his plea:
"This demonstrates that our federal civiliancriminal justice system…is a powerful tool in our fight against terrorism. ...We have to couple it with what we do on the military side, what we do on theintelligence-gathering side. But to take this tool out of our hands, todenigrate the use of this tool, flies in the face of the facts."
As American and Pakistani agents apprehend Talibanofficials, and as the Justice Department uses lawful means to induce one terrorsuspect after another to cooperate, those facts ought to matter to anyone whocares about defeating Al Qaedarather than scoring cheap shots against theConstitution.
%uFFFD 2010Creators.com.
