How Did This Happen, Anyway?

Our future President wants to know how an Al Qaeda leader can escape from jail... twice.

U.S. Senator Russ Feingold today sent the following letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice regarding the recent escape of Jamal al Badawi, who allegedly plotted the attack on the USS Cole, as well as 22 other convicts from a detention center in Yemen.

In the letter, Feingold requests a classified briefing on the escape, as well as information about the other escapees. He also calls into question the U.S. relationship with Yemen in the war on terror.

Feingold writes:

"Al-Badawi's success in twice escaping Yemeni custody event not only calls into question our security and counter-terrorism relationship with Yemen, but it also raises the question of whether or not we have in place the right partnerships and relationships to ensure that known al-Qaida operatives are successfully detained and prosecuted."

And it wasn't just Al-Badawi, but 23 Al Qaeda members that escaped through a tunnel dug by sympathizers. Now, the attack on the Cole was an attack on the United States. Why were the participants in that attack being held in Yemen, especially after the first jailbreak occurred in 2003? Yemen likes to think of itself as an ally in the "War on Terror," but as the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden, their citizens might have different ideas.

Yemen's turning into almost as good an ally as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.