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Obama: US intel had info ahead of airliner attack

ptif219

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It took 3 days for Obama to stop playing golf. Remember the outrage of Bush reading to kids after 911. Where is the outrage here? Thats right the left has selective outrage and a double standard.

I here the same excuses as with the Ft Hood Terrorist. Obama blames others yet does nothing to fix it.


Obama: US intel had info ahead of airliner attack


President Barack Obama said Tuesday that the intelligence community had bits of information that should have been pieced together that would have triggered "red flags" and possibly prevented the Christmas Day attempted terror attack on a Detroit-bound airliner.

"There was a mix of human and systemic failures that contributed to this potential catastrophic breach of security," Obama said.

Senior U.S. officials told The Associated Press that intelligence authorities are now looking at conversations between the suspect in the failed attack and at least one al-Qaida member. They did not say how these communications with the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, took place—by Internet, cell phone or another method.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said the conversations were vague or coded, but the intelligence community believes that, in hindsight, the communications may have been referring to the Detroit attack. One official said a link between the suspect's planning and al-Qaida's goals was becoming more clear.

Intelligence officials would not confirm whether those conversations involved Yemen-based radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, but other U.S. government officials said there were initial indications that he was involved. Al-Awlaki reportedly corresponded by e-mail with Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who is charged with killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, on Nov. 5.

"Had this critical information been shared, it could have been compiled with other intelligence, and a fuller, clearer picture of the suspect would have emerged," Obama said in a brief statement to the media. "The warning signs would have triggered red flags, and the suspect would have never been allowed to board that plane for America."

Officials said Obama chose to make a second statement in as many days because a morning briefing offered him new information in the government's possession about the suspect's activities and thinking, along with al-Qaida's plans.

Obama's statement showed more fire than he had shown previously about the lapses that allowed the bombing attack to take place and came after his homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, had to backtrack on an assertion that "the system worked" in the Detroit airliner scare. Some have criticized Obama for not addressing the issue publicly sooner.

An angered Obama called the shortcomings "totally unacceptable" and told reporters traveling with him on vacation here that he wanted a preliminary report by Thursday on what went wrong on Christmas Day, when the suspect carried explosives onto a flight from Amsterdam despite the fact the suspect had possible ties to al-Qaida.
 
ptif219, you need to allow politicians like Bush and Obama time so as to allow the knowledge of what has happened to filter into their cognitive brains.
3 days seems to be average, then usually another couple of days before they then state they will leave no stone unturned in their search for those who planned this operation.

Bush is still turning stones over after 911.
 
ptif219, you need to allow politicians like Bush and Obama time so as to allow the knowledge of what has happened to filter into their cognitive brains.
3 days seems to be average, then usually another couple of days before they then state they will leave no stone unturned in their search for those who planned this operation.

Bush is still turning stones over after 911.

So Bush is bad because he reads to kids? Obama takes three days and does not stop his vacation and no outrage. You do not see the hypocrisy or double standard?

Also note the same excuses as the Ft Hood terrorist. It seems nothing has been done by Obama to fix this. They need to install an intell sharing program. This is a national security issue when enforcement departments do not share.
 
I would love to see what people expect Obama to do. Overhaul national security? Bomb Yemen?

Wait don't answer that.
 
I'm tired of repeating it, but I will again.

The guy paid for his airline ticket in cash.

He bought a one-way ticket.

He had no passport but was allowed in.

He was on a CIA list already.

He stopped in Yemen before going to Amsterdam.

This guy was the poster child for "no fly list" and somehow he made it on a flight to the U.S., past international security. I call that one big screw up. And now we can't have carry ons going to the U.S. because a very obvious red flag made it through the system, with an explosive in hand.
 
No matter the disaster Bush always waited a number of days before he (apparently) eventually realized he was expected to say and do something.
Obama is apparently following the same line of (in)action.

Obviously what went wrong on this occasion was exactly what went wrong on 911, insufficient intel was broadcast to ALL branches of security services.

Personally unless they fire all those involved we shall have exactly the same excuse next time a terrorist tries or god forbid succeeds.

At some time someone must accept that they are responsible.
 
I'm tired of repeating it, but I will again.

[...]

He was on a CIA list already.

[...]

According to Fox, there are 550,000 names on that list

Source [Fox News | Father of Terror Suspect Reportedly Warned U.S. About Son]

The TSDB is a subset of the 550,000 individuals contained in the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE), which is the Intelligence Community’s central repository of information on known and suspected international terrorists

A database of that size is good for little other than pulling up information about somebody who's already committed an attack. I'd guess that same problem ensured that the information we had prior to the attack was not put to use.

FTA

The officials [...] said the conversations were vague or coded, but the intelligence community believes that, in hindsight, the communications may have been referring to the Detroit attack.

I wonder how many thousands upon thousands of other vague, coded conversations the intelligence community has in some other massive database. There's just not much practical value to the information, just as the fact that his name was on some mile-long list ended up being inadequate to prevent the attack. IMO money is better spent on traditional intelligence means than on trying to vacuum up every bit of information on every last node of an impossibly vast global network. It's just more data than can be realistically utilized
 
It took 3 days for Obama to stop playing golf. Remember the outrage of Bush reading to kids after 911. Where is the outrage here? Thats right the left has selective outrage and a double standard.
It was six days before Bush, then on vacation, made any public remarks about the shoe bomber. Selective outrage and a double standard isn't just a trait of the "Left" like you are suggesting.
 
I'm tired of repeating it, but I will again.

The guy paid for his airline ticket in cash.

And? Where did he buy it? The US? No. Europe? No. You do know that credit card usage in the 3rd world is very very low right? That cash is the way people buy things with?

He bought a one-way ticket.

And so what? Does this mean that anyone buying a one-way ticket is now a terrorist? Damn.. that is gonna suck for those moving to another country, or even internally in the US. News flash, anyone not buying a return ticket must be a terrorists... shoot on sight!

He had no passport but was allowed in.

He did have a passport...I dont know where you are getting your miss information... no wait I think I know...

If you had bothered to read and see other news than Fox News, you would know that the Nigerian's scanned his passport into the US system for approval and it passed. He had a US visa as well.

He was on a CIA list already.

And so are 500k+ people. Hell Ted Kennedy was on that list at one time, along with others. The list is far from perfect but I hope that the mistakes on the list have shrunk after 8 years of Bush.. but then again..

He stopped in Yemen before going to Amsterdam.

Err no. He entered Nigeria illegally, to fly to Amsterdam and then onward to Detroit.

This guy was the poster child for "no fly list" and somehow he made it on a flight to the U.S., past international security. I call that one big screw up. And now we can't have carry ons going to the U.S. because a very obvious red flag made it through the system, with an explosive in hand.

How is he a poster child? Most of the information you posted was wrong lol.

Now if we go back to reality, there are several errors of security in this case, and the blame can be spread quite nicely all over the place.

Obama and his administration is to blame for not calling for a full review of the system when they took office. They are also to blame for continuing a previous administration's policies in this case, believing that it was all good and safe.

Congress and especially Senator De Mint are to blame for not approving the head of the TSA, and not getting to work on the 9/11 recommendations put in place by the 9/11 commission. That Senator De Mint is holding up the head of the agency who is in charge of airport security does not exactly show said senator and the GOP in a good light..

Bush and his administration is to blame for putting the system into works in the first place. All the failures in putting the person on the right list, not listening to warnings, not communicating internally.. all based on procedures and workings put in place by the Bush administration and carried on by the Obama administration. All this shows, yet again, is the total and utter failure of the US intelligence services. They cant talk to each other and if they cant do that, then they will never be effective. The department of Homeland Security was suppose to be the bridge/fix for this problem, but instead it was one of the biggest expansions of government in the US in a very long time, with very little result.

The Dutch are also to blame (and everyone really) by not extending the security arrangements to transit areas. This problem is universal around the world including in the US. It is accepted that once the person has cleared normal security in a country, flies to another country and is put in the transit area, then said person has passed security in said country as well. In this case the lack of screening in the transit area proved near fatal. Security and scan's should be universal regardless if you are in transit or entering a country.

And then we have the Nigerians. Allowing him to get on the plane in the first place, despite having been warned by the parents several times that something was wrong.. But then again we come back to the Nigerian's scanning in his passport. Not only did their own systems not flag him but how do you expect them to know he is an issue for the US, when the US system they scanned in his passport in came back with a standard approval..

But lets not forget one very important thing.

The man in question had the material's in his underpants and unless you want to strip search every single person going on a flight, then that would be near impossible to stop.
 
PeteEU said:
The Dutch are also to blame (and everyone really) by not extending the security arrangements to transit areas. This problem is universal around the world including in the US. It is accepted that once the person has cleared normal security in a country, flies to another country and is put in the transit area, then said person has passed security in said country as well. In this case the lack of screening in the transit area proved near fatal. Security and scan's should be universal regardless if you are in transit or entering a country.

Good post, Pete. However, in this part, you're mistaken. There are security arrangements in transit areas at all Schengen airports. Passengers transiting a Schengen airport from one non-Schengen country to another non-Schengen country, in this case transiting the Netherlands from Nigeria to the US, do go through a full security and passport check while in transit. The only passengers who do not go through security or passport check again are those whose trip is within the Schengen area.
 
I'm tired of repeating it, but I will again.

The guy paid for his airline ticket in cash.

That is the norm in Africa.

He bought a one-way ticket.

There's nothing unusual about that, provided you hold a valid visa.

He had no passport but was allowed in.

As far as I know he did have a valid passport and a valid visa. I'd be interested to see reliable info that he travelled without a passport to the US, if you have it. In my almost 20 years in the airline industry I've only ever seen ONE person travel to the US without a passport. It was an American citizen whose travel documents had been stolen.

He was on a CIA list already.

He stopped in Yemen before going to Amsterdam.

This guy was the poster child for "no fly list" and somehow he made it on a flight to the U.S., past international security. I call that one big screw up. And now we can't have carry ons going to the U.S. because a very obvious red flag made it through the system, with an explosive in hand.

It sure looks like he fell through all the cracks in the system, that much is true. Also, do you have a link about that stop in Yemen? I was under the impression he flew from Nigeria straight to the Netherlands.
 
I would love to see what people expect Obama to do. Overhaul national security? Bomb Yemen?

Wait don't answer that.

Both here and the Ft Hood terrorist showed no sharing of intell between agencies. This needs to change.
 
No matter the disaster Bush always waited a number of days before he (apparently) eventually realized he was expected to say and do something.
Obama is apparently following the same line of (in)action.

Obviously what went wrong on this occasion was exactly what went wrong on 911, insufficient intel was broadcast to ALL branches of security services.

Personally unless they fire all those involved we shall have exactly the same excuse next time a terrorist tries or god forbid succeeds.

At some time someone must accept that they are responsible.

Why the outrage when Bush was with kids and no outrage when Obama continues his vacation and golf game?
 
Last edited:
Comparing 9-11 to a single terrorist incident is comparing apples to oranges.

My post was comparing them under similar circumstances.

Really? Yet Obama is still using the same excuses he used for Ft Hood. After 911 Bush took steps. After Ft Hood Obama has done nothing and is still going to send detainees to Yemen back to Alqaeda


Feinstein: Halt transfers to Yemen - TheHill.com
 
Both here and the Ft Hood terrorist showed no sharing of intell between agencies. This needs to change.

Of course, we can thank Frank Church and the Church Committee for that fiasco.

And while I fully agree, there is still a lot of resistance because of the entrenched beaurocracy and the "tin hat" crowd. Those are the ones that protest anything that they think might be a threat to their "civil liberties", irreguardless of security concerns.

And much like the "Intel" the US had before 9/11, the key thing is having useable intel. In the last 7 years, we have had 2 serious attempts to blow-up aircraft in flight, and probably thousands of tips, threats, and suspicious that such a thing might happen.

The problem is, every time one is stopped, it is likely that nobody outside of a few individuals will ever know about it. But if one is missed, everybody immediately knows about it.

And you can't treat every threat as if it was imminant 24-7. That is simply unrealistic. And will cause chaos in needless questioning and detainment of honestly innocent people.

And the "Terrorism Watchlists" are in many ways nonsense. I myself am on such a list, because there is a Jordanian that uses my name as an alias. That caused me no end of grief last year when I had to change planes in Dallas after a flight from Kuwait.

It did not matter that I came in on a Military Charter flight, that I was traveling in uniform, on orders. The TSA still held me up for over an hour, making sure I was not a terrorist.

But that is the way things are today, and I have learned to live with it.
 
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