A funny thing happens when the attorney general loses any shred of credibility — his terrorist announcements generate more questions than concern. It’s about time.
Yesterday, for example, John Ashcroft wanted the nation to know that a dangerous man who was prepared to launch a terrible attack has been indicted.
Federal officials yesterday accused a Somali man living in Ohio of plotting with al Qaeda terrorists to blow up a Columbus, Ohio-area shopping mall.
Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said that Nuradin M. Abdi, 32, a cell phone company employee in Columbus, was charged with conspiring with al Qaeda operatives, including Ohio truck driver Iyman Faris, who was convicted last year of plotting to sever cables on the Brooklyn Bridge.
A year or two ago, this probably would have prompted some pretty serious coverage and widespread fears. But now that Ashcroft’s considered an unreliable source for such information, there’s a healthy skepticism towards his announcements.
In fact, the New York Times throws cold water on the whole story, which bears some resemblance to the Padilla case in that the alleged plot wasn’t exactly in-the-works.
Law enforcement officials said the plot was still under investigation, but they cautioned that it appeared not to have advanced beyond the discussion stage. The officials expressed doubt that Mr. Abdi had the financial, organizational or technical skills to carry out an attack.
In fact, while most of the media missed it, the NYT actually read the indictment and noticed that the alleged mall attack isn’t even mentioned.
The indictment against Mr. Abdi makes no mention of the alleged plot to blow up a shopping mall. That reference was contained in the motion filed by prosecutors to keep Mr. Abdi in custody.
That’s right, Abdi was indicted for misstating information on a government travel application and lying on an asylum application about his past. Ashcroft seemed to gloss over these details while emphasizing the alleged plan to attack an Ohio mall. You think he might have just been trying to scare us again?
No wonder Paul Krugman is comfortable calling Ashcroft “the worst attorney general in history.”
In fact, Krugman, among other things, notes the interesting timing of yesterday’s announcement.
Last week Mr. Ashcroft, apparently in contempt of Congress, refused to release a memo on torture his department prepared for the White House almost two years ago. Fortunately, his stonewalling didn’t work: The Washington Post has acquired a copy of the memo and put it on its Web site.
Much of the memo is concerned with defining torture down: if the pain inflicted on a prisoner is less than the pain that accompanies “serious physical injury, such as organ failure,” it’s not torture. Anyway, the memo declares that the federal law against torture doesn’t apply to interrogations of enemy combatants “pursuant to [the president’s] commander-in-chief authority.” In other words, the president is above the law.
The memo came out late Sunday. Mr. Ashcroft called a press conference yesterday — to announce an indictment against a man accused of plotting to blow up a shopping mall in Ohio. The timing was, I’m sure, purely coincidental.