I feel safer with these phuckwads in jail, and with the carcasses of some of those who were bankrolling and assisting him scattered across some rocks in Afghanistan.
Padilla Targeted Apartment Houses, U.S. Report Says (Update2)
June 1 (Bloomberg) -- Jose Padilla, one of two U.S. citizens being held as ``enemy combatants'' in the war on terrorism, trained with an explosives expert in Afghanistan and was assigned to blow up U.S. apartment buildings with natural gas, U.S. officials said.
In response to a request from Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, the Justice Department summarized Padilla's activities with al-Qaeda, including his written application to join the group. The seven-page report described his basic training during a trip to Afghanistan, a second trip when he allegedly trained to blow up apartment buildings and a meeting with the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The material ``enables us for the first time to tell the full story of Jose Padilla,'' Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Comey said at a news conference in Washington. ``It will allow the American people to understand the threat he posed'' as ``a highly trained soldier of our enemy.''
A lawyer for Padilla said the government should put Padilla on trial, where he would have a chance to respond.
Comey defended the two-year detention of Padilla, who was arrested in Chicago in June 2002 and accused of plotting to explode a radioactive ``dirty bomb'' in the U.S. Padilla hasn't been formally charged with a crime.
The Bush administration is defending the detention of Padilla and another U.S. citizen, Yaser Esam Hamdi, who was captured with Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. The Supreme Court is due to rule by July on the lawfulness of the detentions. Today's announcement also follows last week's news conference in which Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller warned the U.S. public that al-Qaeda intends to attack the U.S. in the coming months.
Padilla's Admissions
Today's summary is based in part on admissions by Padilla since his arrest on a material witness warrant. Padilla admitted that, during a meeting in Kandahar in July or August of 2001, he was assigned an operation ``to blow up apartment buildings in the United States with natural gas,'' the statement says.
As part of his training, Padilla and another al-Qaeda operative, Adnan El Shukrijumah, also known as ``Jafar,'' worked with an explosives expert at the Kandahar airport on switches, circuits and timers, the government report says.
They ``also spent time learning how to prepare and seal an apartment in order to obtain the highest explosive yield,'' it says. That mission was apparently abandoned, according to the report, when Padilla and El Shukrijumah couldn't get along.
Comey noted that El Shukrijumah was among seven suspected terrorists being hunted by the U.S. who were named last week by Ashcroft and Mueller. He is ``one of the seven we want so bad to find,'' Comey said.
Dirty Bomb
Padilla then turned his attention to a plot in which he would detonate a ``dirty bomb,'' or explosives wrapped in uranium or other radiological material.
Abu Zubaydah, a lieutenant to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, sent Padilla and an accomplice to present their plan to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the chief planner of Sept. 11, the report says. Mohammed was skeptical and urged them to pursue the original plan by entering the U.S., locating up to three high-rise apartment buildings that had natural gas, rent two apartments in each building, seal the openings, turn on the gas and set timers to detonate explosives.
Mohammed ``wanted Padilla to hit targets in New York City, although Florida and Washington, D.C., were discussed as well,'' the report says. ``Padilla now admits that he accepted the mission.''
Arriving in Chicago
He entered the U.S. at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on May 8, 2002. He lied to FBI agents about having been to Afghanistan, about the source of the more than $10,000 he had on him, and the purpose of his return to the U.S., the report says. The agents arrested him.
After being designated an enemy combatant, Padilla was placed in the custody of the Defense Department. He has been held without charges in a Navy brig in Charleston, South Carolina.
Padilla's case was the subject of a hearing in the U.S. Supreme Court on April 28. Justices questioned whether the Bush administration has the right to detain American citizens indefinitely as part of the war on terrorism by labeling them as ``enemy combatants.''
The New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled for Padilla in December, saying the military couldn't hold him as an enemy combatant without congressional authorization. The appeals court said Padilla must be charged with a crime, held as a material witness or released. The court put its ruling on hold pending the Supreme Court appeal.
Right Call
Comey said the Padilla story shows that President George W. Bush made the right call in naming him an enemy combatant and depriving him of the rights and access to court granted to U.S. criminal defendants.
``The president's decision was to hold him to protect the American people and find out what he knows,'' Comey said. ``What we have learned confirms that the president of the United States made the right call, and that call saved lives.''
Had Padilla been treated as a typical defendant, he probably would have followed a lawyer's advice ``and said nothing,'' Comey said. ``He would likely have ended up a free man, with our only hope being to try to follow him, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and hope, pray really, that we didn't lose him.''
Criminal Charges
One of Padilla's lawyers, Andrew G. Patel, said he would characterize Comey's presentation as ``an opening statement in a trial that's not happening.''
He added, ``This is a trial in the court of public opinion and not a court of law.''
Asked about that at the press conference, Comey said he isn't ruling out a criminal trial ``some day.'' In a trial, prosecutors wouldn't be able to use the statements Padilla has made while in military custody, Comey said.
Comey also denied that the report's release is related to the Supreme Court's considerations of Padilla's status.
Hatch, who requested the report, said it ``confirms the very real and dangerous threat'' that Padilla posed.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Laurence Arnold in Washington
larnold4@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Glenn Hall at
ghall@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: June 1, 2004 14:53 EDT