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President Obama's Press Conference on Failed Xmas Day Attack

By Jeralyn

Bump and Update: Here is the summary of the de-classified review. Here are the new security directives President Obama issued today.

Update: Overall theme: Here come the whole imaging body scanners. (Added: And, from Napolitano, here come the "behavior analysts," more cops and more dogs.)

President Obama's press conference is starting on the security review of the alleged attempted terror attack by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on Christmas Day.

You can watch live here.

I'll live blog for a bit, below the fold. [More...]

He starts with their conclusions and the steps we're going to take to prevent it from happening again. John Brennan and Janet Napolitano will also speak. He is going to summarize the findings.

The shortcomings occurred in three ways:

1. Although we had learned about AQAP and were recruiting people to attack "the homeland", they didn't follow up the intelligence threads.

2. The failure to connect the dots might have prevented us from uncovering Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's plot.

3. This led to shortcomings in the watch list, allowing him to board the plane.

We had the info scattered throughout the system to possibly uncover the plot. It was not a failure to collect the info, but a failure to put it together.

4 areas of new steps:

1. Intelligence agencies will assign clear lines of responsibility for following leads.

2. Intell. reports regarding threats to US will be distributed to more people.

3. Strengthen analystical process: How the info is processed.

4. Will strengthen watch list and no fly list.

[Uh-Oh: Here comes the whole imaging scanners. Metal detectors wouldn't do it. We're spending $1 billion on new systems. (Buy stock in these companies now.)]

The buck stops with him. He accepts blame.

Update: He's blaming al Qaeda as a singular entity. He says they attacked us on 9/11 and are still planning to attack us. But the al Qaeda that attacked us on 9/11 is not AQAP, which wasn't formed until the past couple of years and is an offshoot of al Qaeda. It's a different threat in my view. Does he want the American people to think Osama bin Laden is still behind all this?

He's done, 12 or 13 minutes. He doesn't take questions. Brennan and Napolitano are next.

Update: Brennan. He praises the CIA and intelligence agencies who have thwarted many attacks against us since 9/11, just not this one. (The delivery was priceless, he only left out the "Heckavajob".)

Full post as published by TalkLeft on January 07, 2010 (boomark / email).