The original dirty bomber
Posted on 08/22/2007 11:05:24 PM PDT by freedomdefender
People who knew Jose Padilla before he was sent to a Navy brig in 2002 say he emerged a different man after three and a half years of isolation and interrogation. Those who observed him only from a distance also noticed a change: The "dirty bomber" whose capture then-Attorney General John Ashcroft had announced on live TV morphed into yet another junior jihadist who went to Afghanistan for arms training but never came close to carrying out an attack.
Padilla's recent conviction on terrorism-related charges highlights the contrast between the murderous mastermind portrayed by the Bush administration and the less impressive reality. It casts further doubt on President Bush's decision to put Padilla, a U.S. citizen arrested on U.S. soil, in military custody, a move supposedly justified by his intelligence value and the impossibility of successfully prosecuting him in a civilian court.
"We have disrupted an unfolding terrorist plot to attack the United States by exploding a radioactive ‘dirty bomb,'" Ashcroft declared when he revealed Padilla's arrest. He explained that a dirty bomb "not only kills victims in the immediate vicinity but also spreads radioactive material that is highly toxic to humans and can cause mass death and injury." CNN reported that "U.S. officials said Washington was the probable target."
Although Padilla had been arrested at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport more than a month before, Ashcroft heightened the drama by interrupting a visit to Moscow for a press conference via satellite. The next day, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz confessed, "I don't think there was actually a plot beyond some fairly loose talk... It's not as though this was a plan that was on the verge of being executed... He was still in the early stages."
How early? According to a 2006 New York Times story, Al Qaeda personnel director Abu Zubaydah, the government's main source of information about the bomb plot, "dismissed Mr. Padilla as a maladroit extremist whose hope to construct a dirty bomb, using conventional explosives to disperse radioactive materials, was far-fetched. He told his questioners that Mr. Padilla was ignorant on the subject of nuclear physics and believed he could separate plutonium from nuclear material by rapidly swinging over his head a bucket filled with fissionable material."
The Defense Department says Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, another Al Qaeda leader who was later captured, also "was very skeptical." Padilla reportedly told U.S. interrogators the dirty bomb talk was a ruse to avoid being sent to fight American forces in Afghanistan.
Because they were coercively obtained, such statements were not admissible at Padilla's trial, but it hardly would have mattered if they were. Based on his training in Afghanistan and his connection to two codefendants accused of sending money to terrorist groups, a federal jury convicted Padilla of two conspiracy charges, plus a charge of providing "material support" to terrorists.
The evidence on which the prosecution based its case, including secretly recorded telephone conversations and a "mujahedeen data form" with Padilla's fingerprints on it, was available at the time of his arrest. Because of the way prosecutors framed the charges, Padilla could be imprisoned for life. Defendants in other cases who admitted undergoing terrorist training have received sentences ranging from seven to 15 years.
It seems clear the government could have tried and convicted Padilla back in 2002, which leaves intelligence gathering as the remaining excuse for his 43 months of legal limbo. Maybe Padilla provided valuable information, although his junior position in Al Qaeda (assuming he even could be considered a member) and the disdain of the organization's leaders suggest otherwise.
Does the possibility of gleaning information about terrorism justify stripping a U.S. citizen of his constitutional rights and locking him up indefinitely without charge, based on nothing more than one man's order? It was hardly a coincidence that President Bush transferred Padilla back to civilian custody for his long-delayed trial just as the Supreme Court was poised to consider that question.
He sounds like a wonderful human being.....just because he wanted to kill innocent people in the name of religion we shouldnt hold it against him
The original dirty bomber
If Mohammed Atta or any of his 9/11 co-conspirators had been caught in time, it would have been soooo easy for gullible liberals to portray them as bumbling fools with no serious plan....... (1) the raw intent to participate in a terrorist conspiracy, especially when accompanied by attending training camps, etc. should be enough to put these scumbags away for life; (2) we do not need to wait for someone to ‘prove’ they really were capable of pulling off a mass terrorism incident to regard their efforts with extreme seriousness.
They would let a Nuke happen without any retaliation post holocaust.
You’d think a magazine named “Reason” wouldn’t feature an article based wholly on handwringing emotional hokum.
Question to Jacob. . .was the above comment by Wolfowitz offered as a 'confession'. . .a begrudging admission of sorts or was this perhaps MR. Wolfowitz response to a question or just his 'explanation'.
This entire analysis is a stretch to invite us to ascribe sinister motives to the Government and those investigating; rather than the perp himself.
The fact that this was loose talk; and far from execution does not remove this man from having been a 'real threat'. . .in real time if only in due time. Am not sympatahertic to 'terrorist wannabe's'. . .even if 'taken out early' in their game.
He told his questioners that Mr. Padilla was ignorant on the subject of nuclear physics and believed he could separate plutonium from nuclear material by rapidly swinging over his head a bucket filled with fissionable material."
That does it. . .Padilla is obvioiusly innocent and deserves only 'reasonable doubt' and not anything beyond.
Come on! Move on. . .am sure Scooter Libby did not get such a nuanced analysis. . . If you want to take on an injustice commited by 'the Government'. . .just call him. A story, far more worthy. . .
The longer we go without another attack, the more that others believe the danger was all hyped up.
-pJ
It’s all Bush’s fault...for stopping him to soon.
The implication being that Bush should have first sent this Padilla idiot to The Institute of Nuclear Technology so he could learn how to make a dirty bomb in order to justify the arrest.
My guess is that if there was a bomb threat against “Reason” headquarters the fact that the person making the threat wasn’t schooled in bomb-making would have little impact on their decision as to whether or not to seek prosecution.
The pride of the American public education system. I don't think nuclear physics was the only area in which Senor Padilla was a few bricks shy of a load.
Gee, he had such a promising future, he planned to work as teacher in an American inner city school. You wonder why the kids drop out, when they have such fonts of knowledge, wisdom and reason before them.
There's also the little matter of the dirty bomb plot morphing into a plan to blow up 20 US apartment buildings simultaneously -- but hey, according to this so-called "writer," Padilla was just a dumb-ass, in contrast to all those Rhodes scholars who daily blow up people in the name of Allah.
A little light reading here on Padilla, Mr. Sullum, you idiot.
This is so unfair. I admit we made mistakes with the 9/11 bombers...we just let them go too far.
I think we should have let Mr. Padilla gather some radioactive istotopes and at least purchase the components to the bomb before we busted him. Even better would have been just to watch him to see how he built it...or even how he deployed it.
We trampled over his rights of free speech.
\S
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.