The Daqduq Dilemma

Rather than authorize a commission trial, Obama released al-Qaeda terrorist Binyam Mohammed to Britain, where he is free. There was nary a peep, even though Mohammed had plotted with convicted terrorist Jose Padilla to carry out a second wave of post-9/11 attacks. Similarly, the Qazali brothers, two of the top Iraqi terrorists trained by Daqduq, were released, even though they were complicit in the Karbala massacre. ... little is reported about the Obama Justice Department's efforts to cut the 23-year sentence of Abdurrahman Alamoudi, a Hezbollah and Hamas supporter who financed terrorist organizations and plotted with the Qaddafi regime to kill Crown Prince (now King) Abdullah of Saudi Arabia ... The plan was to transfer [Ali Mussa Daqduq] to the Iraqi regime as early as yesterday — without fanfare, the administration hoped.... But the Associated Press got wind of the transfer, and its brief report provoked outrage. Senate Republicans, joined by independent Joe Lieberman, fired off a letter to secretary of defense Leon Panetta, ballistic at the notion that the United States would surrender "the highest ranking Hezbollah operative currently in our custody." Inevitably, the senators observed, Daqduq would return to the jihad "to harm and kill more American servicemen and women" when Iraq releases him, as these new "allies" of ours have done with other terrorists.