Levin and McCain are deaf to Madison’s warning

The 9/11 attacks didn’t succeed because al Qaida was superbly capable. They succeeded because the United States was so inept and the Defense Department withheld intelligence gathered in Operation Able Danger from the FBI. Operation Able Danger, a pre-9/11 counter-terrorism effort, had identified Mohammad Atta (in alias) and several other 9/11 hijackers well before the attacks. Former FBI Director Louis Freeh maintained in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in November 2005 that had he received the Able Danger information regarding al Qaida cells operating in the U.S. under the direct control of Osama bin Laden, the 9/11 hijackings could have been thwarted with criminal law enforcement tools. But the information was concealed from the FBI because of misplaced advice from Department of Defense lawyers. A full accounting of this ill-starred compartmentalization by the 9/11 Commission would have proven that enhanced cooperation between law enforcement and the intelligence community, not war or the wounding of the rule of law or liberty at home, was the key to combating international terrorism.

Finally, the detainee provisions of the defense authorization bill imply that the War on Terror is perpetual and planet-wide. No benchmarks are established that would ever terminate the conflict with al Qaida, the Taliban and other foreign terrorist organizations. The idea that the exclusive congressional power to declare war includes deputizing the president to continue war forever at whim is unconvincing. Once war commences, Congress should not be reduced to an extra in a Cecil B. DeMille military extravaganza starring the president alone.

Bruce Fein is a senior policy adviser to the Ron Paul 2012 presidential campaign.