rssPetraeus: We Don’t Read Detainees Their Miranda Rights
Thursday, June 11, 2009 at 10:53 am
- 13 Comments
If you didn’t wade through the details of counterinsurgency strategy in Spencer’s liveblog of Gen. David Petraeus’ keynote speech this morning at the Center for a New American Security conference, you may have missed this interesting nugget: Petraeus tore down a Weekly Standard report that the FBI was reading Miranda rights to detainees captured in Afghanistan.
“The real rumor yesterday is whether our forces were reading Miranda rights to detainees and the answer to that is no,” Petraeus said today.
The Weekly Standard piece, published on the magazine’s Website yesterday, claimed that “the Obama Justice Department has quietly ordered FBI agents to read Miranda rights to high value detainees captured and held at U.S. detention facilities in Afghanistan, according a senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee.”
The Republican in question was Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan, who told the Standard:
The administration has decided to change the focus to law enforcement. Here’s the problem. You have foreign fighters who are targeting US troops today – foreign fighters who go to another country to kill Americans. We capture them…and they’re reading them their rights – Mirandizing these foreign fighters.
Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) then jumped into the fray:
When they mirandize a suspect, the first thing they do is warn them that they have the ‘right to remain silent.’ It would seem the last thing we want is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or any other al-Qaeda terrorist to remain silent. Our focus should be on preventing the next attack, not giving radical jihadists a new tactic to resist interrogation–lawyering up.
I’m not sure where Rogers and co. got their information, but it seems safe to assume that Petraeus would be in the know here, and his denial is unambiguous.
Follow Aaron Wiener on Twitter
13 Comments
Comment posted June 11, 2009 @ 9:02 am
Actually, Petraeus' “denial” is ambiguous. (1) He said “our forces” which suggests he is talking about military personnel, i.e. armed “forces,” rather than FBI agents, as referred to by Cong. Rogers. (2) Petraeus referred to “detainees” generally, rather than certain “high value detainees” as described in the Rogers quote. So it is quite possible that the military is not mirandizing detainees as a general matter (this is obviously almost certainly true), but that the FBI may be mirandizing certain HVTs. Obviously, more info is needed to come to any firm conclusions.
Pingback posted June 11, 2009 @ 12:08 pm
[...] Shocker. “The real rumor yesterday is whether our forces were reading Miranda rights to detainees and the answer to that is no,” Petraeus said today. [...]
Pingback posted June 11, 2009 @ 12:41 pm
[...] the next attack, not giving radical jihadists a new tactic to resist interrogation
Pingback posted June 11, 2009 @ 10:45 pm
[...] Petraeus, Malkin’s Miranda claim is false. The Washington Independent’s Aaron Wiener explains: If you didn’t wade through the details of counterinsurgency strategy in Spencer’s [...]
Pingback posted June 11, 2009 @ 11:01 pm
[...] For the record, according to Gen. David Petraeus, Malkin’s Miranda claim is false. The Washington Independent’s Aaron Wiener explains: [...]
Pingback posted June 11, 2009 @ 11:01 pm
[...] For the record, according to Gen. David Petraeus, Malkin’s Miranda claim is false. The Washington Independent’s Aaron Wiener explains: [...]
Pingback posted June 11, 2009 @ 11:25 pm
[...] Petraeus, Malkin’s Miranda claim is false. The Washington Independent’s Aaron Wiener explains: If you didn’t wade through the details of counterinsurgency strategy in Spencer’s liveblog of [...]
Pingback posted June 12, 2009 @ 12:02 am
[...] Petraeus, Malkin’s Miranda claim is false. The Washington Independent’s Aaron Wiener explains: If you didn’t wade through the details of counterinsurgency strategy in Spencer’s [...]
Comment posted June 12, 2009 @ 12:30 am
Hoekstra's comment sound as if he's asserting another GOP meme intended to discredit Obama's foreign policy rather than discuss a potential policy decision. But dirk's comment is noted. We do need more information from better sources (or a clarification from Petraeus) on this issue.
Comment posted June 14, 2009 @ 12:39 pm
While the Petraeus comment is unambiguous, as far as it goes, it does leave room for maneuver. The General stated “The real rumor yesterday is whether our forces were reading Miranda rights to detainees and the answer to that is no,” – does the general consider FBI part of “our forces”? It is an interesting play on words and worthy of any General (Politician) that might need room to manuever. I wonder if Patton would of said such things.
Comment posted June 14, 2009 @ 7:39 pm
While the Petraeus comment is unambiguous, as far as it goes, it does leave room for maneuver. The General stated “The real rumor yesterday is whether our forces were reading Miranda rights to detainees and the answer to that is no,” – does the general consider FBI part of “our forces”? It is an interesting play on words and worthy of any General (Politician) that might need room to manuever. I wonder if Patton would of said such things.
Comment posted June 8, 2010 @ 2:38 pm
thanks for your shareing
Fashion legancy– we sell famous brand christian louboutin
100% Authentic, 50% discount cheap christian louboutin shoes.
christian louboutin shoes authentic hot sell online, welcome for retail and wholesale christian louboutin,
christian shoes, louboutin shoesorders.
24 hours/day customer service online, louboutin paypal accepted.
Hi, I like to lose weight!
thanks for your shareing
Recently so many people who want to lose weight choose this style shoes– mbt shoes!
we call it massaqi shoes, it is special design have lose weight function.
come to our website, and choose cheap mbt shoes online, 65% discount mbt shoes Cheap MBT Shoes sale online.
welcome for retail and wholesale mbt shoes orders.
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
