"I made the decision to charge Mr. Abdulmutallab with federal crimes, and to seek his detention in connection with those charges, with the knowledge of, and with no objection from, all other relevant departments of the government," Attorney General Eric Holder has written to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

Holder's letter, which is posted here, is "the latest volley in a vigorous counterattack by the Obama administration to Republican charges that the arrest and FBI interrogation of the Detroit suspect was a mistake that cost a chance to learn key information," the Associated Press writes.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is the young Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight as it approached Detroit on Christmas day.

In the letter, Holder adds that:

On the evening of December 25 and again on the morning of December 26, the FBI informed its partners in the Intelligence Community that Abdulmutallab would be charged criminally, and no agency objected to this course of action. In the days following December 25 — including during a meeting with the president and other senior members of his national security team on January 5 — high-level discussions ensued within the administration in which the possibility of detaining Mr. Abdulmutallab under the law of war was explicitly discussed. No agency supported the use of law of war detention for Abdulmutallab, and no agency has since advised the Department of Justice that an alternative course of action should have been, or should now be, pursued.

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, the practice of the U.S. government, followed by prior and current Administrations without a single exception, has been to arrest and detain under federal criminal law all terrorist suspects who are apprehended inside the United States.

(The underline is part of the original letter, not something we added.)