Review of security failure to show human and systemic error
Barack Obama was last night due to receive an initial report into the failures of US intelligence agencies in the foiled Christmas plane attack. The review blames human and systemic failures and contains recommendations for improving air security, including tightening scrutiny of the half-million people on the US terrorist suspect list.
Obama gave John Brennan, the White House counter-terrorism adviser, a deadline of yesterday to complete an initial review of the breakdown in US intelligence. The agencies were yesterday seeking to shift blame from one another.
White House officials said Obama was unlikely to comment publicly about the report but would be discussing it during the day with his national security team.
One of the main concerns is that the various agencies held information on the suicide mission but no-one connected them. The agencies are also accused of having not followed up aggressively enough when concern about the alleged Nigerian plotter surfaced.
The British government is conducting a similar intelligence review. Gordon Brown, in an article published on the Downing Street website today, said the UK security services were working with the US and other international agencies 'to improve the sharing of information about individuals of concern'.
The Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is alleged to have tried to set off explosives hidden in his pants on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.
The Nigerian government last night issued a statement saying that Abdulmutallab had began his journey in Ghana. Information Minister Dora Akunyili said: 'Further investigations by the Nigerian government have revealed that Abdulmutallab spent less than 30 minutes in the Nigerian airport before boarding the flight to Amsterdam.'
A US official told the Politico website information about him was 'vague but available'. After 9/11, the Bush administration set up a national intelligence body to oversee the work of US agencies to try to avoid such lapses. But the National Counter-terrorism Centre did not piece together the warning from Abdulmutallab's father, Alhaji, about his son's radicalisation and departure for Yemen and intercepts of conversations among leaders of al-Qaida in Yemen about a Nigerian man to be used for a future terrorist attack.
The CIA is facing criticism that it failed to share information about Abdulmutallab with other intelligence agencies. The National Security Agency and the state department also under scrutiny over their roles in the failure. A senior intelligence official told the Washington Post: 'The right information did not get to the right people – there's no question about that. If all known information had been provided, we would have been down a different path.'
Among questions raised is why Abdulmutallab did not have his US visa revoked after being placed on the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment list, along with 550,000 other suspicious people. He was placed on the list after the US was alerted by his father.
Brown said: 'We need to … further tighten these arrangements 'in particular, at what point suspects are added to the list and when they are deemed too risky to be allowed to fly, or leave or enter the country‚ and also into wider airport security.'
Brown said he was working with Obama on examining 'a range of new techniques to enhance airport security systems beyond the traditional measures.'
US intelligence agencies are looking at the role, if any, in the Detroit incident of the US-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen. Awlaki was in contact with the US army psychiatrist who shot fellow troops at Fort Hood base, Texas. Awlaki preached at a mosque in Virginia until 2002 when he went to the UK, leaving for Yemen two years later.
How does a massive, costly security apparatus fail to stop a known terrorism threat from boarding an airplane and wrecking devastation?