Posted on 01/01/2010 6:44:00 PM PST by Saije
President Barack Obama received a high-level briefing only three days before Christmas about possible holiday-period terrorist threats against the US, Newsweek has learned. The briefing was centered on a written report, produced by US intelligence agencies, entitled "Key Homeland Threats", a senior US official said.
The senior Administration official, who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information, said that nowhere in this document was there any mention of Yemen, whose Al-Qaeda affiliate is now believed to have been behind the unsuccessful Christmas Day attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to bring down a transatlantic airliner with a bomb hidden in his underpants. However, the official declined to disclose any other information about the substance of the briefing, including what kind of specific warnings, if any, the President was given about possibly holiday attacks and whether Yemen came up during oral discussions.
According to the senior official, the holiday threat briefing, one in a series of regularly-scheduled sessions with top counter-terrorism officials, was held in the White House Situation Room on December 22. Present were representatives of agencies involved in counter-terrorism policy and operations, including Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and FBI Director Robert Mueller. The CIA and National Intelligence Directors Office were represented by deputy agency heads: CIA deputy director Steven Kappes, and David Gompert, the principal deputy to National Intelligence Czar Dennis Blair. Also present was Michael Leiter, director of the National Counter-terrorism Center, a unit of the Intelligence Czar's office which was created after 9/11 to ensure that intelligence reporting about possible terrorist plots was shared quickly among all US agencies who might have some capability to do something about it.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.newsweek.com ...
Remember, he was totally preoccupied with pushing healthcare through the Senate before he left. He held his trip up to push healthcare through, but having been briefed on possible terrorist plots?......hey, no big deal!
Remember, he was totally preoccupied with pushing healthcare through the Senate before he left. He held his trip up to push healthcare through, but having been briefed on possible terrorist plots?......hey, no big deal!
You mean 'the One' knew and did nothing? Damn that sounds worse than slow katrina response to me! Where is the media on this??????
They keep calling America the Homeland. I hate that. Homeland=Hitler.
And when it did Obama's ass should have been on Air Force One on his way to The White House to deal with it. Hell he didn't even talk about it for almost three days. Is he still on vacation on our dime?
What about Nigeria and London? Or the Netherlands?
We KNOW there were threats about a NIGERIAN.
It is meant to place the blame on the failings of anyone and everyone except Obama. Obama never accepts responsibility for any of his failings. This is no different. It is someone else’s fault.
And some of you are so all over the guy for his inattentiveness to our country's safety. You know who you are. Be honest! Is it racism that makes you feel this way?
No worries.
Everyone settle down.
Well, don’t all Presidents get briefed on this stuff, every day?
“I don’t think it is supposed to be bad news. It is meant to absolve him.”
The left, and maybe others, made a very big deal about the August 2001 intelligence briefing Bush got, even though that had no specifics that would warn anyone about 9/11. So I think the Obama people are trying to get out ahead of a similar story here. If Obama gets hammered as bad as Bush did for supposedly “knowing” ahead of time, then it could be a very bad story.
They are such nice people that only want to give millions of dollars to Americans.
I read it that way also. It is meant to absolve him.
Too busy getting his skinny butt out of the Continental United States in case the attack is successful.
I do too. Didn't like it when the "Department of Homeland Security" was set up in the first place and now it's Øbama Uber Alles.
What good will any briefings do Obama when he will discount them, ignore them or downplay them.
And yet... U.S. helps Yemen in attacks against suspected al-Qaeda targets on December 19th and that President Obama had called President Ali Abdullah Saleh to congratulate him on Yemen's efforts against al-Qaeda.
It’s probably a misunderstanding. When they told him that the homeland was in danger he thought they were talking about Kenya.
Re: Yemen
Is it possible to write a competent report on “Terror Threats to the Homeland” that does not mention Yemen?
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