Security: The administration says the Christmas bomber is now cooperating with authorities. We thought they got all the information he had in a 50-minute chat. So just why are we letting our enemies know he's talking?

In any war, it's vitally important that you know what your enemy is planning and doing, just as it's important that your actions and plans remain secret. And when you know about your enemy's plans it's important they don't know that you know.

We were told not to worry when the Christmas bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was taken into custody and Mirandized almost immediately. We were told we got all the information he had in 50 minutes. Larry King has done longer and better interviews.

Now the story has changed. Apparently we didn't get all the information he had, for the administration has publicly announced that Mr. Abdulmutallab is now cooperating with authorities, presumably telling us what he really knows about the intentions of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. If so, that is good news.

What's not so good news is that to score political points, the administration has told the world and al-Qaida that we are learning what Abdulmutallab knows, and now al-Qaida will know we know what he knows. They will change their plans, move their assets and attempt to thwart any U.S. action based on any valuable information he may be providing.

Abdulmutallab has been providing information in recent days, an administration official said last Tuesday on condition of anonymity. This announcement was presumably made to make the point that the administration's decision to abandon enhanced interrogation techniques was justified.

This announcement made Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., justifiably furious. Bond promptly dashed off a letter of protest to President Barack Obama. In the letter he noted that on Feb. 1 the leadership of the Senate Intelligence Committee received notice from the Federal Bureau of Investigation concerning Abdulmutallab's recent willingness to provide critical information.

The problem, Bond said, was that a short 24 hours later "White House staff assembled members of the media to announce Abdulmutallab's cooperation and to laud the events that led to his decision to cooperate with law enforcement personnel. This information immediately hit the airwaves globally, and, no doubt, reached the ears of our enemies abroad."

This is an unconscionable betrayal of the public trust, one that puts American lives and national security at risk, jeopardizes future American actions and gives our terrorist enemies an unnecessary and dangerous heads-up.

"FBI officials," Bond wrote, "stressed to me the importance of not disclosing the fact of (Abdulmutallab's) cooperation in order to protect on-going and follow-on operations to neutralize additional threats to the American public; FBI Director Robert Mueller personally stressed to me that keeping the fact of (Abdulmutallab's) cooperation secret was vital to prevent future attacks against the United States."

Atty. Gen. Eric Holder has admitted and defended his decision to Mirandize Abdulmutallab almost immediately and proceed to a criminal trial. He has said he is merely following the precedent established by President George W. Bush in his handling of shoe bomber Richard Reid. That is a bogus comparison.

Reid was arrested in December 2001 in the aftermath of 9/11 when the anti-terror apparatus we have now was not yet fully in place. There were no military commissions or tribunals to process his case. There is today no reason to treat terrorist acts as criminal acts. There is certainly no reason to blab about how we are operating and what we are learning to the world and our enemies.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the 9/11 architect, and the Christmas bomber are enemy combatants. They should be brought before military tribunals as enemy soldiers in a terrorist war on the United States. Their fate should be no different than that of the Nazi saboteurs who landed on our shores during World War II.

And this administration and Atty. Gen. Eric Holder should learn to keep their big mouths shut.