Washington – In a revealing admission, President Barack Obama said today he was directing U.S. intelligence agencies to begin to do something many had assumed they were already doing: “[A]ssigning specific responsibility for investigating all leads on high priority threats so that these leads are pursued and acted upon aggressively.”
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“That is a shock because we had such a follow-up system when I was there,” said Richard Clarke, the White House counter-terrorism director in the Clinton and Bush administrations. Clarke, who worked on the Obama transition team, is now an ABC News consultant.
The President said he would hold his staff accountable but said no one person was responsible or would be fired. “Ultimately the buck stops with me,” the President said.
In announcing his review of the failures that allowed a “known terrorist” to board a flight to Detroit with a bomb on Christmas Day, the President said there was “a failure to connect the dots of intelligence that existed across our intelligence community.”
The review found that “no single component of the counter-terrorism community assumed responsibility for the threat reporting and followed it through.”
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was apprehended on Christmas after allegedly attempting to detonate explosives sewn into his underwear on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. After the incident, Abdulmutallab’s father revealed that he had contacted U.S. officials in Nigeria and warned them that his 23-year-old son had extreme views and might pose a threat to the U.S.
Among the key shortcomings in intelligence that the President cited in his speech were a lack of follow-up by the various intelligence agencies and a failure to confront the growing threat posted by Yemen’s al Qaeda offshoot, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
Abdulmutallab’s Name Misspelled
The review singled out the National Counterterrorism Center and the CIA for criticism, saying they had failed to search all databases for information about Abdulmutallab.
It also noted that the State Department initially failed to realize Abdulmutallab had a valid U.S. visa because his name was misspelled.
However, the President specifically denied that a failure to share information had allowed Abdulmutallab to slip through the net. “Rather than a failure to collect or share intelligence,” said the President, “this was a failure to connect and understand the intelligence that was already there.”
After 9/11, the intelligence community was criticized for a failure to share information across agencies.
In a briefing after the President’s remarks, counterterrorism advisor John Brennan said he had personally let the president down.
Brennan said that the intelligence and law enforcement community had done a “stellar” job over the past year. “It was in this one instance that we did not rise to that same level of competence and success.”
Brennan said the president had told him he must do better. Said Brennan, “I told him that I will do better and we will do better as a team.”
keep all the bums mr. president. and have another 9 11 coming up
he should fire white house social secretary and make mrs salahi the social secretary…..
and he should make Mr. Salahi the secretary of homelands
If the buck stops with him, then he should be fired. I just wish!!! Can you imagine the media’s response to this outrageous incompetence and callousness if it had occured under Bush? Sorry to all you liberal pro-Obama bloggers, this guy is an incompetemt boob with absilutely no sense on what to do next.
Great. He takes respobsiblity now everyone could move on to the next issue. He will deal with it.
What? you mean responsibilty means that someone should have some type of “repucusions.” No! that is not the way. Policy is to modify. We modify everyones loans we bail out the union controlled auto makers and big O will offer a bail out to whoever was responsible because that is being responsible.It all ties in with policy.
Now everyone go home and talk about important issues like abortion or gun control, gay marriage things that realy affect everyone.
He is so full of hot air it’s amazing he doesn’t self explode!!
All talk and no action! Real action!
The fact that he continued his vacation when this happened says more than any speech he may give.
where i work if i would make a “systemic failure” i would be fired
“It was in this one instance that we did not rise to that same level of competence and success.”
Yes, the only one instance that mattered and could have made the difference between life and death. That the only one the screwed up on. I feel much safer now. Really, what do you expect from a president that refuses to label a moslem extremist that posts to the internet that Americans should be killed, then he himself goes on to kill 13 people and wound 30 more, and the president says “you have to understand, he was just having a bad hair day.”
That’s America. When something goes wrong, we look to fire the underling who goofed. But the idiots who hired the goofers are never ever held accountable. Who did the hiring? Who hired the supervisors that did not recognize that there were threats here? The responsibility lies in the Oval Office. The buck stopped there, and died instantly. The issue is not the worker – it is the chief. If we had a Republican Congress, we could discuss whether to impeach some top administration officials. Then the buck will have stopped and something would be accomplished.
How nice. Now tell us when you will begin to act stand up and be a Commander-in-chief, rather than a buffoon, play acting the President? All your words are cheap, 20 days late, and $40-00 short as always.