WH: 'Our Critics Are Helping Al Qaeda. Terrorists Are Not 100 Ft Tall'

In an oped in USA Today, John Brennan -- Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism -- responds to critics of the Obama administration's counterterrorism policies by saying "Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda."

Brennan writes that, "Terrorists are not 100-feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill."

In the oped, titled "'We need no lectures': Administration disrupts terrorists’ plots, takes fight to them abroad," Brennan writes that politics "should never get in the way of national security. But too many in Washington are now misrepresenting the facts to score political points, instead of coming together to keep us safe."

The administration op-ed is in response to a USA Today editorial entitled "National security team fails to inspire confidence; Officials’ handling of Christmas Day attack looks like amateur hour."

Brennan provides a detailed defense of the administration's handling of failed Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab whom, he says, was "thoroughly interrogated and provided important information."

He suggests that many critics are hypocritical and clueless.

The most important breakthrough in the interrogation occurred "after Abdulmutallab was read his rights, which the FBI made standard policy under Michael Mukasey, President Bush's attorney general," he writes, noting that failed shoe bomber Richard Reid "was read his Miranda rights five minutes after being taken off a plane he tried to blow up. The same people who criticize the president today were silent back then."

Brennan said anyone who wants to change the policy would be casting aside lessons learned "in waging this war" on extremists.