Brennan: GOP attacks on White House counterrorism serve al-Qaeda's goals

Political attacks on the White House's efforts to fight terrorism only serve the goals of al-Qaeda, according to President Barack Obama's top counterterrorism adviser.

Deputy National Security Advisers John Brennan penned an op-ed in USA Today to defend the administration against Republican attacks against its handling of the Christmas Day bomber.

"Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda," Brennan wrote. "Terrorists are not 100-feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill."

Republican lawmakers, led by Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member Kit Bond (R-Mo.), have accused the White House of leaking sensitive information about the interrogation of the accused bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

Bond says that administration officials, including Brennan, instructed him not to speak publicly about the contents of an intelligence briefing he received on Abdulmutallab, who reportedly has ties to an al-Qaeda cell in Yemen.

But the White House has denied Bond's accusations, saying that they disclosed no classified information.

The administration has also fended off criticism from Republicans on the 50-minute FBI interrogation of Abdulmutallab before he was read his Miranda rights.

GOP lawmakers have said that it is not enough time to gather intelligence and that he should have been taken into military custody. Bond said on Fox News Monday night that he is willing to keep up the fight.

"I'm willing to keep this fight going as long as they want to claim that it's the right way to go," he said.

But the White House has said that countererrorism officials have collected all the information they need from Abdulmutallab and that it acted properly; saying the shoe-bomber Richard Reid was Mirandized during the Bush administration.

"This administration's efforts have disrupted dozens of terrorist plots against the homeland and been responsible for killing and capturing hundreds of hard-core terrorists," Brennan wrote. "We need no lectures about the fact that this nation is at war."

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