US intelligence on plane bomb suspect was 'vague but available' (original) (raw)

Barack Obama is to meet the heads of US intelligence agencies to address the near-catastrophic communication breakdown over the botched Christmas plane attack.

Obama made a point of saying that the meeting in Washington on Tuesday will address "intelligence-sharing improvements in our homeland security and counter-terrorism operations".

His comment came amid criticism of the agencies for failing to pick up the threat posed by the alleged Nigerian plotter, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab contained in a review which blamed human and systemic failures for Abdulmutallab's failed attack.

Republicans broke with the tradition of publicly backing a president during a national security crisis and accused Obama of endangering Americans and being soft on terror over the attempted attack. Democratic party leaders hit back by saying the president's opponents were seeking to make political gain.

Some of the strongest criticism has come from former vice-president Dick Cheney, who accused Obama of weakening US security. "President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war," Cheney said. "He seems to think if he has a low-key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people we won't be at war."

One of the main concerns is that the various agencies had bits of the information but no one connected them.

Obama announced the meeting yesterday after receiving a preliminary report on the security failure.

Anxious to be seen to be engaged, amid criticism that he is reluctant to break his Hawaii holiday, the president said he been given an update on the security review by his counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan. He had also discussed airport security measures with the homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano.

The British government is conducting a similar intelligence review. The prime minister, Gordon Brown, in an article published on the Downing Street website today, said the UK security services were working with international agencies "to improve the sharing of information about individuals of concern".

Abdulmutallab is alleged to have tried to set off explosives hidden in his underwear during a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. It emerged yesterday that his journey did not start in Nigeria, as first thought, but in Ghana.

A US official told the Politico website that information about Abdulmutallab was "vague but available". After the 9/11 attacks the Bush administration set up a national intelligence body to oversee the dozen or so US agencies to try to avoid such lapses. But the national counterterrorism centre did not put together the warning from Abdulmutallab's father, Umaru, 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 terrorist attack.

A senior intelligence official told the Washington Post: "The right information did not get to the right people – there's no question about that."

Questions raised include why Abdulmutallab did not have his visa for the US revoked after his father's warning caused him to be placed on the US's Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment list, along with 550,000 other suspicious people.

Brown said: "We all urgently need to work together on how we might 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."

US intelligence agencies are looking at the role, if any, of US-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Earlier this year, Awlaki was disclosed to have been in contact with the US army psychiatrist who carried out the shooting of troops at the Fort Hood base.