By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 2, 2004; Page A01
Jose Padilla, the former Chicago gang member accused of planning to set off a radiological bomb in the United States, also plotted with some of al Qaeda's highest-ranking operatives to blow up U.S. apartment buildings using natural gas and had sworn to carry out attacks when he was arrested two years ago, according to an unusual release of classified interrogation information by the government yesterday.
The seven-page summary of the case against Padilla, a U.S. citizen, also alleges that he met repeatedly with senior leaders of the al Qaeda terrorist network ….
At a Washington news conference, Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey Jr. said information gleaned from interrogations of Padilla and others since his arrest show that he was intent on killing innocents in the United States but "would likely have ended up a free man" if prosecuted in the criminal justice system, because his attorney would have advised him to tell authorities nothing. That would have left authorities without the information they have obtained and with the responsibility of watching Padilla for the rest of his life, Comey said.
Asked how Padilla differed from the hundreds of Mafia wannabes, thousands of teen street gang applicants, and millions of habitual drunk drivers in the United States, all of whom are currently free men, but who may one day kill someone, Mr. Comey said "The difference is that Mr. Padilla was actually planning to kill Americans. When a drunk smashes into a minivan and kills a soccer mom and three kids, it's an accident, an Act of God. You can't do anything about that."
When a reporter pointed out that organized crime members, from street gangs to international syndicates, often plan to and do kill people, Comey replied "OK, that's different because most killings by criminals are of other criminals. Not only does that not affect innocent Americans (as long as they're wealthy enough to live in safe suburbs), but it's practically a public service.
Asked if Mr. Padilla had killed more or fewer people than the tobacco industry last year, Comey said "Well, I'd have to have our research people look into that. Padilla, in the last year he was free, managed to kill zero people, but cigarettes killed only a few thousand, so we'll have to see which is more." Told by a reporter than even one thousand is more than zero, Comey dismissed the information saying "I'm not going to react to your hearsay version of math, I'm going to wait for the expert opinion."
Finally, asked if Padilla were not in fact simply a low-life loser of a punk, whose serial failures in life and overactive imagination had led him to delude himself that he was an international figure of menace, a fantasy that the government was willing to sacrifice a thousand years of legal tradition to validate, Comey replied "This was no fantasy. This man talked - actually spoke - to top al-Qaeda leaders. He voluntarily communicated with them. Asked on what particular date "Talking to Bad Guys" had become a Federal Crime, Comey spluttered "That's not the point! They could easily have progressed from speculating about leaving the gas on to deliberately causing traffic accidents or setting fires with matches. Matches! Sulfur! The Devil's chopsticks! The New WMD! Sure, they call them 'safety matches', but they're not safe! No Sir!"
Comey was led off the podium and replaced by a man who detailed al-Qaeda's plan to flush large objects down America's toilets, causing a septic tank crisis.
Remember, Kids, the part in bold is actual 100% news-flavored media product.
The rest is the fakey part.
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