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Elites Connect Dots
American Journalism Center ^ | January 13, 2010 | Sheila Archambault

Posted on 01/13/2010 9:50:14 AM PST by bs9021

Elites Connect Dots

Sheila Archambault, January 13, 2010

(When academics take over homeland security, the last thing they consider is…the security. A presidential administration laden with Ph.Ds is showing us the way.

“Already the culture of the Obama administration is coming into focus,” University of Chicago graduate David Brooks pointed out in his New York Times column when the new president took office. “Its members are twice as smart as the poor reporters who have to cover them, three times if you include the columnists.” Fast forward to 2010—ed.)

Even though the U.S. government had sufficient information to uncover and potentially disrupt the foiled Christmas Day terrorist attack, analysts in the counter-terrorism community failed to “connect the dots,” a review by the White House said.

A White House review of the events leading to the attempted attack said intelligence analysts failed to identify Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian national who attempted to explode a Northwest flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, as a likely al-Quaida operative and did not increase analytic resources working on the al-Quaida threat.

“The overlapping layers of protection within the counter-terrorism community failed to track this threat in a manner sufficient to ensure all leads were followed and acted upon to conclusion,” the review said.

While all intelligence analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Counterterrorism Center had access to information about Abdulmutallab and al Quaida and its plans and information, the dots were never connected, it said.

On Nov. 18 Abdulmutallab’s father even met with officials at the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria to discuss concerns that his son was connected with extremists and planned to travel to Yemen....

(Excerpt) Read more at academia.org ...


TOPICS: Government; Politics; Society
KEYWORDS: bho44; detroitbomber; homelandsecurity

1 posted on 01/13/2010 9:50:20 AM PST by bs9021
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To: bs9021
there was not enough intelligence available to meet the minimum standards to the watchlist.

This phrase cracks me up. Is that DC or what!

2 posted on 01/13/2010 10:00:28 AM PST by Thebaddog (AYBABTU)
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To: Thebaddog
there was not enough intelligence available to meet the minimum standards to the watchlist.

After all, he never blew up a plane with his underwear before. Why should we inconvenience him? It might hurt his feelings.

3 posted on 01/13/2010 10:02:36 AM PST by paulycy (The Liberals' DOUBLE-STANDARDS are HATE CRIMES.)
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To: Thebaddog
"there was not enough intelligence available . . ."

That is not a reference to the data.

4 posted on 01/13/2010 10:15:49 AM PST by oldbill
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