The Clipboard: Award flap is a credibility loss for FBI

From an article¹:

That's not the way it's supposed to work in this country, and Hamad's supporters are justly outraged at any suggestion that the ball is in their court.

Hamad can hardly defend his reputation when the FBI has yet to offer a coherent explanation for its misgivings about him. It's the bureau, not its erstwhile honoree, that owes the public some better answers.

Until such answers are forthcoming, the rest of us should regard Hamad's treatment as an affront to fairness. To do otherwise would suggest that the values we are so eager to defend from external enemies are already rotting from within. (link)

Larger lessons from the shabby treatment of Imad Hamad.

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Complete text of the article, Award flap is a credibility loss for FBI, by Brian Dickerson

Even the FBI's most ardent admirers must be wondering how the world's most respected law enforcement agency could have mismanaged the strange affair of Imad Hamad any more thoroughly.

To review:


Last month, the FBI announced it would honor Hamad and Madeline Sweeney, a flight attendant aboard one of the jetliners that crashed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, with its Exceptional Public Service Award at an Oct. 9 ceremony in Washington, D.C. Hamad, who heads the Dearborn office of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, was praised for his efforts to foster cooperation between law enforcement and metro Detroit's Arab community.

Last Tuesday, after Hamad came under attack by a pro-Israeli group and a syndicated columnist based in metro Detroit, the bureau announced it was rescinding Hamad's award. A press release cited "evidence referencing Mr. Hamad" that had been filed "in connection with an upcoming deportation proceeding against associates of his."

Wednesday, the FBI said its statement linking Hamad to people the government wants to deport had been issued erroneously, but offered no alternative explanation for the decision to scuttle his award.

On Saturday, Willie Hulon, who heads the FBI's Detroit office, said the decision was neither a reaction to outside pressure nor an indication that the bureau had uncovered evidence linking Hamad to terrorists. But he declined to say whether the bureau suspected Hamad of terrorist connections.
What in the world is going on here?

Did the bureau's Washington headquarters cave to pressure groups who don't like Hamad's politics? Is Hamad being pilloried because of the same allegations a federal immigration judge dismissed in 1999 as "vague, lacking in specificity and uncorroborated?"

Or was Hulon's office unaware of substantive security concerns about one of its most valued liaisons to the Arab-American community?

None of these explanations enhances public confidence in the FBI. But what's even more disturbing is the non-law enforcement community's hesitation to challenge Hamad's shabby treatment.

Imad Hamad is hardly an unknown quantity in Michigan. Former Gov. John Engler appointed him to the state's Arab-American Advisory Council in 2001, and the Detroit News named him one of its Michiganians of the Year last May. None of the allegations raised in last month's hatchet job by columnist Debbie Schlussel or a coordinated letter-writing campaign by the Zionist Organization of America is new, and the most serious ones have long since been discredited.

But so far, most people outside the Arab-American community are giving Hamad's accusers the benefit of the doubt.

That's not the way it's supposed to work in this country, and Hamad's supporters are justly outraged at any suggestion that the ball is in their court.

Hamad can hardly defend his reputation when the FBI has yet to offer a coherent explanation for its misgivings about him. It's the bureau, not its erstwhile honoree, that owes the public some better answers.

Until such answers are forthcoming, the rest of us should regard Hamad's treatment as an affront to fairness. To do otherwise would suggest that the values we are so eager to defend from external enemies are already rotting from within.

reference=http://www.freep.com/news/metro/dicker13_20031013.htm