Posted on 01/03/2010 6:23:59 AM PST by kristinn
U.S. intelligence agencies did not miss a "smoking gun" that could have prevented an alleged attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day, President Barack Obama's top counterterrorism adviser said Sunday.
White House aide John Brennan cited "lapses" and errors in the sharing of intelligence and clues about the Nigerian man accused in the foiled attempt.
"There is no smoking gun," Brennan said. "There was no single piece of intelligence that said, 'this guy is going to get on a plane.'"
Brennan is leading a White House review of the incident. Obama has said there was a systemic failure to prevent the attack, which he said was instigated by an affiliate in Yemen of the al-Qaida terrorist network.
Obama ordered a thorough look at the shortcomings that permitted the plot, which failed not because of U.S. actions but because the would-be attacker was unable to ignite an explosive device. The president has summoned homeland security officials to meet with him in the White House Situation Room on Tuesday.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab apparently assembled an explosive device, including 80 grams of Pentrite, or PETN, in the aircraft toilet of a Detroit-bound Northwest flight, then planned to detonate it with a syringe of chemicals. Passengers intervened, and the plan failed.
The 23-year-old suspect's name was known to intelligence officials, and his father had passed along his concern about the son's increasing radicalization.
"We had bits and pieces of information," Brennan said on CNN's "State of the Union." The father's warning, he said, was "one set of data."
But Brennan said other information available didn't provide the details needed to map it and attach it to Abdulmutallab.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
They really do ..
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Chief of firm involved in breach is Obama adviser
###
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The CEO of a company whose employee is accused of improperly looking at the passport files of presidential candidates is a consultant to the Barack Obama campaign, a source said Saturday.
John O. Brennan, president and CEO of the Analysis Corp., advises the Illinois Democrat on foreign policy and intelligence issues, the source said.
Brennan briefed the media on behalf of the campaign this month.
The executive is a former senior CIA official and former interim director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
He contributed $2,300 to the Obama campaign in January.
When asked about the contribution, a State Department official told CNN’s Zain Verjee, “We ethically awarded contracts. Political affiliation is not one of the factors that we check.”
On Friday, the department revealed that Obama’s passport file was improperly accessed three times this year, and the security of passport files of the two other major presidential candidates — Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican John McCain — had also been breached.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/22/passport.files/index.html
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Dec 30 2009, 5:59 pm by Marc Ambinder
White House Grants Ethics Waiver To John Brennan
###
President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, will lead the White House review of intelligence community information practices and aviation security, even though he was CEO of the private company the government used to help manage a key terrorism database before he joined the administration.
In response to questions about Brennan’s potential conflict of interest, White House ethics counsel Norm Eisen has issued a waiver for Brennan, official said.
Before he served as CEO of The Analysis Corporation, or TAC, Brennan was the interim director of the first incarnation of the National Counterterrorism Center.
In that position, he oversaw the government’s first post 9-11 attempts at community-wide data sharing. Before joining the administration, Brennan spent 35 years in the intelligence community, mostly at the CIA, and served in senior management.
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/12/white_house_grants_ethics_waiver_to_john_brennan.php
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lest we forget, there’s at least one murder (unsolved) connected to Brennan’s pursuits by his employee’s passport peeking: Lt. Quarles Harris Jr
* *
Key witness in passport fraud case fatally shot
Lt. Quarles Harris Jr., 24,
***who had been cooperating with a federal investigators,
was found late Thursday night slumped dead inside a car, in front of the Judah House Praise Baptist Church in Northeast, said Cmdr. Michael Anzallo, head of the department’s Criminal Investigations Division.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/apr/19/key-witness-in-passport-fraud-case-fatally-shot/
Of course they do! They do not care about ethics, America or the people!
RIP Lt. Quarles Harris Jr.
Thanks for the ping.
He had a visa, but it’s not clear that he actually presented his passport when he changed planes in the UK.
There are so many things that are not clear about this...
However there was a collection of evidence, that had it been considered, would tell you that the guy was one who should not be allowed to board an airplane. Especially an airplane headed to the good old US of A. Especially allowed to board without a complete physical search of his happy ass. Especially considering he had no baggage.
So, no single piece of evidence may be correct.
Are we ever going to recover from this administration and recognize our fair country?
If this administration is waiting for a smoking gun before taking action to protect us, they all need firing.
Heck, they all need firing anyway.
“They really think we’re that dumb.”
Yup, the Left is an arrogant lot that really do believe they are far more intelligent, progressive, simply put better than anybody else.
America proved them right in 2006, and 2008.
Perhaps we could do better in 2010.
Because he was competent in comparison.
What Napolitano meant to say was, “the system developed by the Bush administration worked, despite our best efforts to screw it up.”
How about a smoking seat ?
Brennan, YOU MUST STOP TREATING TERRORISTS AS CRIMINALS AND GO BACK TO THE BUSH PRE-EMPTIVE INTERVENTION STRATEGY.IF YOU DO NOT AMERICAN CIVILIANS WILL DIE AND THE BLOOD WILL BE ON YOUR HANDS. TERRORISTS ARE NOT "CRIMINALS". THEY ARE LIKE PIRATES ON THE HIGH SEAS, NO NATION, RELIGIOUS WAR.TREAT THEM AS ENEMY COMBATANTS AND INTERROGATE THEM.FOLLOW UP THE INTELLIGENCE BY INTERVENTION SPECIAL OPS. THE FLT. 235 PERP SHOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN ALLOWED TO BOARD. THE OBAMA STRATEGY IS NOT AGRESSIVE ENOUGH. WAKE UP BRENNAN. PEOPLE WILL BEGIN TO STOP FLYING WITH ETHNIC MUSLIMS ON BOARD FLIGHTS BY THEIR OWN CHOICE. BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS BRENNAN...... YOU WILL HAVE NO PLACE TO HIDE.OBAMA WILL THROW YOU UNDER THE BUS.
They really do, don't they?
The good thing is that we aren't. The vast majority of Americans aren't fooled by these incompetants.
Their days are numbered.....
The father of the Christmas Day airline bomb plot suspect talked to a CIA agent about his son's extremist views but although the agent's report on the meeting was sent to the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Virginia, it was not circulated any more widely
If the information had been shared with other intelligence agencies, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab might have been banned from getting on the Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit
The Wall Street Journal reported that Dr Mutallab met with with the CIA at the US embassy in Abuja on November 19, but added that the meeting prompted an interagency gathering the next day.
Representatives from the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Department and the CIA attended that meeting
An administration official told CNN the federal government had information that should have been assessed and meshed with other information "that would have allowed us to disrupt the attempted terrorist attack" before the suspect boarded the jet.
Obama administration, et al ARE LIARS!!!
You're on to something there, it's been tried:
"Obama has said there was a systemic failure to prevent the attack..."
Failure is a TOP-DOWN program in the DUh-bama administration.
If I get this right...
They now say we got hit by AlQaida, and they have no way of stopping AlQaida, even if they get phone calls and embassy visits from relatives that tell them who is coming to kill us?
And we pay billions of dollars for this security? This is just great.
When the terrorists’s own Father, a well respected bank executive goes to the US Embassy, names his son by name, and tells them about his activities in Yemen, then about the phone call from his son, telling him this is his last phone call — if this is not a smoking gun, what is?!
Is this the fellow that is in charge of all our intelligence? His job is to be a detective to find things out and it is not to cover obamas ass.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/us/politics/08council.html
Obama Is Reported Set to Revise Counterterrorism Efforts
New York Times, The (NY) - Thursday, January 8, 2009
Author: PETER BAKER
Abstract: Pres-elect Obama reportedly is preparing to scrap Bush administration’s approach to overseeing domestic security and name former CIA official John O Brennan to coordinate counterterrorism; plan would eliminate independent homeland security adviser’s office and assign those duties to National Security Council;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/08/AR2009010804108.html
Obama Taps CIA Veteran As Adviser On Terror - Brennan Has Drawn Fire on Interrogations
Washington Post, The (DC) - Friday, January 9, 2009
Author: R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post Staff Writer
Barack Obama has picked John O. Brennan as his top adviser on counterterrorism, a role that will give the CIA veteran a powerful voice on the government’s use of security contractors and on other sensitive issues in which he recently has played a private-sector role.
By appointing Brennan to a senior White House position not subject to Senate approval, Obama is also making him an influential adviser on the Middle East and on Iran, a topic on which Brennan has called for a sharp break with past U.S. policy.
The president-elect’s decision comes only six weeks after Brennan was forced to pull out of contention for the directorship of the CIA because of fears that his statements supporting some controversial interrogation techniques would have complicated his confirmation.
The firm Brennan heads, the Analysis Corp., and its corporate parent have earned millions of dollars over the past decade assisting several federal agencies and private firms on counterterrorism. Those oil and telecommunications firms have worked in countries beset by violence, including Mozambique, Liberia, Colombia and Pakistan — all of which have been topics of intense policy debate in Washington.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/08/roundup080709.html
National Security
Sustainable Security 101
The Center continued its work on sustainable security by publishing an introduction to the subject after Senior Counterterrorism Advisor John O. Brennan said that the United States must redefine its strategy to include all facets of national power.
CAPs CEO and President John D. Podesta accompanied former President Bill Clinton to North Korea on a mission to secure the freedom of journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee. And Colin Thomas-Jensen offered an analysis on Secretary of State Hillary Clintons visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo in an Ask the Expert video.
More on Lieutenant Quarles Harris Jr:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2232588/posts?page=105
Key witness in (presidential) passport fraud case fatally shot [old article]
Washington Times ^ | 4/18/2008 |
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