Attorney General Eric Holder said Friday he found it “intolerable” that  Arab and Muslim Americans feel uncomfortable about their relationship with law enforcement and asserted the Justice Department is working to strengthen the ties with those communities.

ADC National Board Chairman Dr. Safa Rifka, right, introduces Attorney General Eric Holder, seated on Friday (photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice).

“Since becoming Attorney General last February, I have heard from Arab-Americans and Muslim Americans who say they feel uneasy about their relationship with the United States government.  I’ve spoken to Arab-Americans who feel that they have not been afforded the full rights – or, just as important, the full responsibilities – of their citizenship. They tell me that, too often, it feels like ‘us versus them’,” Holder said in prepared remarks.

“That is intolerable,” he continued. “And it is inconsistent with what America is all about. In this nation, our many faiths, origins and appearances must bind together, not break us apart.”

Holder addressed the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), one of the organizations that takes part in bi-monthly meetings hosted by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. The meetings bring Muslim, Arab, Sikh and South Asian American leaders together with representatives of top federal agencies, a spokesman said.

Holder’s speech, at the 30th anniversary convention of the organization, came at a time when government officials have expressed heightened concern about the threat of home-grown terrorism inspired by Islamic extremism.

Those fears were underscored last week by White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan. In remarks about the Obama administration’s new National Security Strategy last week, Brennan said there had been seven alleged incidents of home-grown terrorism in the past year.

Another case was announced by the Justice Department on the eve of Holder’s speech when the Justice Department disclosed the indictment of an U.S. citizen who was allegedly prepared to fight jihad, inspired by al-Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki.

The National Security Strategy (PDF) warned that “several recent incidences of violent extremists in the United States who are committed to fighting here and abroad have underscored the threat to the United States and our interests posed by individuals radicalized at home. Our best defenses against this threat are well informed and equipped families, local communities, and institutions,” the report said.

The Justice Department has tried to carefully cultivate its relationship with Arab and Muslim-American civil rights organizations as it pursues aggressive law enforcement strategies to prevent terrorist attacks which continue to leave some groups saying they feel singled out for scrutiny.

Holder addressed one issue of tension – the Justice Department’s Guidance Regarding the Use of Race by Federal Law Enforcement Agencies, which was issued in 2003. Holder noted that he had initiated an internal review of the guidance in the fall.

“I’m committed to ensuring that department policy allows us to perform our core law enforcement and national security responsibilities with legitimacy, accountability and transparency,” Holder said. “But, today, I want to be clear about something: Racial profiling is wrong. It can leave a lasting scar on communities and individuals. And it is, quite simply, bad policing—whatever city, whatever state.”

Holder also highlighted the outreach efforts of the Arab/Muslim Engagement Advisory Group, which he established last year. He mentioned the FBI’s new Specialized Community Outreach Team (SCOT), DOJ’s Community Relations Service, the Office of Justice Programs and U.S. Attorneys who are working to strengthen the Arab-American community’s relationships with federal law enforcement.

“The era of ‘us versus them’ that some of you have experienced must end. At long last, it is ending. Together, we can make sure it’s replaced by a new era – an era that recognizes the truth reflected in this organization’s name – that regardless of our faiths, regardless of our backgrounds, we are all Americans,” Holder said.

The Justice Department’s relationship with ADC is not new. They worked together throughout the Bush administration, though there were a handful of flair-ups. Several Bush administration Justice Department officials, including former Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Alexander Acosta have spoken to the group, as had former Attorney General Janet Reno.

Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond (R-Mo.) today became the second Senate Republican and third prominent conservative to suggest that Attorney General Eric Holder should resign over his decisions on terrorism cases.

Kit Bond (gov)

Bond, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has joined Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin in calling for Holder’s resignation.

Conservatives have been critical of the administration’s decision to charge the alleged Christmas Day attempted airline bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, in federal court as a criminal rather than put him in military custody for interrogation.

Bond said yesterday that John Brennan, President Obama’s chief homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, “needs to go” because of his role in the events surrounding the decision on how to handle alleged bomber.

And today, Bond told The Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire blog, “I think Eric Holder has been totally wrong, and he should go too. It’s a question of trust,” adding: “They [Holder and Brennan] both came up short.”

Bond also took a dig at Holder for the Attorney General’s decision to try five alleged 9/11 plotters in a New York City federal court. The terrorism suspects will now likely be tried elsewhere after immense criticism from local politicians and members of Congress.

“Eric Holder said the 9/11 trial in New York will be the defining moment of his tenure,” Bond told the Washington Wire. “I hope it is.”

The White House has supported its national security leaders, according to the blog. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs earlier this week called on Bond to apologize for his barbs, the Washington Wire said.

The chairman and ranking Republican the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee asked Attorney General Eric Holder today to remove the alleged Christmas Day airplane bomber from federal custody and treat him as a military prisoner.

Joe Lieberman (Gov)

Susan Collins (Gov)

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who allegedly tried to ignite explosives in his underpants on a Dec. 25 Detroit-bound flight, is being held by federal authorities as a civilian. Panel Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), the committee’s ranking member Susan Collins (R-Maine) and other conservative senators say the opportunity to gain valuable intelligence now may be lost, since Abdulmutallab is being treated as a criminal suspect with rights against self-incrimination.

“Though the president has said repeatedly that we are at war, it does not appear to us that the president’s words are reflected in the actions of some in the Executive Branch, including some at the Department of Justice, responsible for fighting that war,” Lieberman and Collins said in a joint letter to Holder and John Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism. “The unilateral decision by the Department of Justice to treat Abdulmutallab — a belligerent fighting for and trained by an al-Qaeda franchised organization — as a criminal rather than a [unprivileged enemy belligerent] and to forgo information that may have been extremely helpful to winning this war demonstrates that very point.”

Here is the full letter.

Last week, Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) demanded to know who decided to let FBI agents read Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights and treat him as a civilian. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters on Thursday he believes Holder was responsible for the decision.

DOJ spokesman Matthew Miller defended the Obama administration’s handling of Abdulmutallab. “Those who now argue that a different action should have been taken in this case were notably silent when dozens of terrorist were successfully prosecuted in federal court by the previous administration,” Miller said in the statement, citing the prosecutions of al-Qaeda operatives Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui. Read Miller’s full statement here.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder (file photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice).

A standout new New York Times Magazine story on President Barack Obama’s handling of terrorist threats includes details about the political pressure on U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder as he made the decision to try self-declared Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian court.

According to the 8,800-word article by the Times’s Peter Baker, some in the White House, including Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, raised concerns about the “collateral cost” of Holder’s decision, announced in November.

Those concerns were relayed to the Justice Department, Baker wrote. Ultimately Obama declined to intervene and let Holder make the call.

Holder also had disagreements with John Brennan, the president’s counter-terrorism adviser, who initially sided with Holder and then-White House Counsel Greg Craig in an internal battle over whether to release Justice Department memos about C.I.A. interrogation methods.

But Brennan later came to support the C.I.A.’s view, which said that those memos would give terrorists too much information about the agency’s tactics, writes Baker.

Craig was eventually ousted from the White House after months of internal criticism about his handling of national security policies.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney has led a chorus of GOP criticism against the administration’s national security policies, including Holder’s decision to try Mohammed in federal court.

Baker’s story is scheduled to be published in the Jan. 17 print edition of the newspaper. It was updated, edited and posted online early because of relevant news events, including the attempted terrorist attack on a U.S.-bound jetliner on Christmas day, according to Politico’s Michael Calderone.

Hopefully you didn’t miss Jane Mayer’s latest article in The New Yorker, dated June 22, 2009 (next Monday).

In an interview with Mayer, CIA Director Leon Panetta revealed that when he first took the reins of the CIA, he had asked then-CIA Inspector General John Helgerson to conduct a review to make sure that there was nobody left at the CIA that should be prosecuted for torture or related crimes.  Helgerson was the author of the 2004 classified report questioning the legality and effectiveness of the agency’s secret detention and brutal interrogation program.  Panetta says that Helgerson, who retired in May, assured him that there were no officers currently with the CIA that had violated the legal guidelines established during the Bush years.  He did, however, tell Panetta that ”continuing work was being done.”

But that doesn’t mean Panetta has managed to extricate himself from involvement with high-level officials who are connected with the torture program.  Many of his top deputies “worked closely” with former CIA Director George Tenet.  Even Panetta’s number 2, Stephen Kappes, was part of the torture regime.  Ironically, Kappes’ continued stay at the CIA was demanded by Democrats who refused to support Panetta’s nomination otherwise.  Mayer explains that:

During the first term of the Bush Administration, Kappes was a top official in the Directorate of Operations. This group oversaw the agency’s Counterterrorist Center, which, in turn, managed the secret detention-and-interrogation program. Few doubt that he was aware that the C.I.A. was engaging in brutality. One former officer recalls that Kappes voiced qualms, warning that the program amounted to “torture.” According to the former officer, once Kappes was overruled he went along; Kappes was “the brains” of the directorate, the former officer says. (Kappes, through a spokesman, denied having had a direct role in the interrogation program, or having called its tactics torture.) Another former C.I.A. operative says, “It would be hard to say someone so involved could be robustly objective” in advising Panetta.

Another torture holdover is Jonathan Fredman, the former Chief Counsel to the Counterterrorist Center, who famously proclaimed that “If the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong.”  His former boss, CIA Acting General Counsel John Rizzo, was the man many of the Justice Department’s torture memos were addressed to.  Rizzo remains at the agency while the search for a replacement continues.  The current head of the Counterterrorist Center, an undercover officer, ran the torture program during Bush’s second term.  Mayer also says that “[s]everal current station chiefs and division chiefs were also deeply involved in brutal interrogations, as were pilots, logistical experts, medical personnel, and others.”

And don’t forget former Tenet’s former chief of staff John Brennan, who is now advising President Obama as a senior official on the National Security Council.

Mayer notes that with all of these former Bush-officials still involved in top-level decision-making, no CIA officer has been charged with criminal acts relating to torture.  This, despite the fact that at least three prisoners have died as a result of enhanced interrogation:

In the first case, an unnamed detainee under C.I.A. supervision in Afghanistan froze to death after having been chained, naked, to a concrete floor overnight. The body was buried in an unmarked grave. In the second case, an Iraqi prisoner named Manadel al-Jamadi died on November 4, 2003, while being interrogated by the C.I.A. at Abu Ghraib prison, outside Baghdad. A forensic examiner found that he had essentially been crucified; he died from asphyxiation after having been hung by his arms, in a hood, and suffering broken ribs. Military pathologists classified the case a homicide. A third prisoner died after an interrogation in which a C.I.A. officer participated, though the officer evidently did not cause the death

The program was so out of line that German car salesman Khaled el-Masri was tortured for 149 days due to a case of mistaken identity by the CIA… oops.  The officer responsible for Masri’s suffering has received two promotions since then.

So what news did Mayer have to offer?  For one:

Helgerson, the former inspector general, forwarded the crucifixion case, along with an estimated half-dozen other incidents, to the Justice Department, for possible prosecution. But the case files have languished. An official familiar with the cases told me that the agency has deflected inquiries by the Senate Intelligence Committee seeking information about any internal disciplinary action. (Helgerson told me, “Some individuals have been disciplined. And others no longer work at the agency.”)

Regarding the closed-door investigation into the torture program by the Senate Intelligence Committee, Panetta told Mayer that some 10 million documents had been found.

While there’s little chance that CIA officials will be prosecuted, some remain hopeful that some of the private contractors involved will be held accountable.

In April, Panetta fired all the C.I.A.’s contract interrogators, including the former military psychologists who appear to have designed the most brutal interrogation techniques: James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen. The two men, who ran a consulting company, Mitchell, Jessen & Associates, had recommended that interrogators apply to detainees theories of “learned helplessness” that were based on experiments with abused dogs. The firm’s principals reportedly billed the agency a thousand dollars a day for their services. “We saved some money in the deal, too!” Panetta said. (Remarkably, a month after Obama took office the C.I.A. had signed a fresh contract with the firm.)

According to ProPublica, the investigative reporting group, Mitchell and Jessen’s firm, which in 2007 had a hundred and twenty people on its staff, recently closed its offices, in Spokane, Washington.

Pressure is also coming through less talked about avenues.

A grand jury is currently considering an indictment of CIA officials for destroying 92 video tapes documenting interrogations of detainees, including Abu Zubaydah.  There is also reason to believe that the inquiry may extend to determining if the interrogations occurred before the authorization was given.  In Italy, two dozen CIA officials are being tried in absentia for a rendition that occurred in 2003.  Spain has opened an investigation of high-level Bush officials that authorized torture.  And Binyam Mohammed is still using the British courts to try to get information about his rendition.  Other lawsuits are also working their way through the United States court system.

Mayer also notes that earlier this month, “Philip Mudd, Obama’s nominee for a top Homeland Security post, withdrew from consideration after it became clear that his Senate confirmation would turn into a fight over his previous role in the C.I.A.’s interrogation program.”

It looks like the Obama administration will have to confront this problem sooner rather than later.