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GOP: Obama giving underwear bomber too many rights

22 GOP Senators wrote to President Obama today to ask him to reconsider his decision to try underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in the criminal court system and name him an "enemy combatant." "Other than the Federal Bureau of Investigation, no member of the intelligence community – in particular the Central Intelligence Agency – had ...

22 GOP Senators wrote to President Obama today to ask him to reconsider his decision to try underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in the criminal court system and name him an "enemy combatant."

"Other than the Federal Bureau of Investigation, no member of the intelligence community – in particular the Central Intelligence Agency – had the opportunity to question Abdulmutallab and gather intelligence," read the letter, spearheaded by Georgia Republican Saxby Chambliss, "As a foreseeable consequence of the decision to prosecute him as a criminal, Abdulmutallab stopped disclosing information to the FBI upon being informed of all his rights under U.S. criminal law."

You can read the whole thing here.

Josh Rogin covers national security and foreign policy and writes the daily Web column The Cable. His column appears bi-weekly in the print edition of The Washington Post. He can be reached for comments or tips at josh.rogin@foreignpolicy.com.

Previously, Josh covered defense and foreign policy as a staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, writing extensively on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, U.S.-Asia relations, defense budgeting and appropriations, and the defense lobbying and contracting industries. Prior to that, he covered military modernization, cyber warfare, space, and missile defense for Federal Computer Week Magazine. He has also served as Pentagon Staff Reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading daily newspaper, in its Washington, D.C., bureau, where he reported on U.S.-Japan relations, Chinese military modernization, the North Korean nuclear crisis, and more.

A graduate of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, Josh lived in Yokohama, Japan, and studied at Tokyo's Sophia University. He speaks conversational Japanese and has reported from the region. He has also worked at the House International Relations Committee, the Embassy of Japan, and the Brookings Institution.

Josh's reporting has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, CBS, ABC, NPR, WTOP, and several other outlets. He was a 2008-2009 National Press Foundation's Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellow, 2009 military reporting fellow with the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the 2011 recipient of the InterAction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. He hails from Philadelphia and lives in Washington, D.C. Twitter: @joshrogin

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