President Will Push Today for Intelligence Community to Constantly Challenge Its Assumptions
EmailPresident Obama convenes a meeting of national security officials in the Situation Room today to look at the events leading to Umar Farouq Abdulmutallab’s attempt to blow up Northwest Flight #253 on Christmas Day.
His purpose for today’s meeting is clear: what went wrong? And how can the U.S. government make sure it never happens again?
White House sources say President Obama will present concrete reforms. ABC News has learned that one component will deal with examining and updating the assumptions of the intelligence community and making those assumptions more flexible.
An example: in 2002 a Nigerian traveling to Yemen might not have meant much to the intelligence community. But now with a considerable al Qaeda presence in West Africa and Yemen, such an event means a lot. The intelligence community’s ability to change its assumptions needs to be more supple, the president believes.
Other steps already in the midst of implementation:
• The Transportation Security Administration has already begun more stringent screening of passengers, including greater scrutiny of passengers from 14 select countries each with a serious al Qaeda presence.
• Intelligence officials have started more scrutiny of their expansive terrorist databases and adding individuals to the smaller list of passengers who must be screened before flights or to the no-fly lists.
• The State Department has started more aggressively rejecting and rescinding travel visas to the US.
In the Situation Room this afternoon the President’s meeting will begin with FBI Director Robert Mueller giving an update on the investigation, followed by Attorney General Holder who will provide details about the prosecution of Abudlmuttalab. The president will then hear the two reviews he ordered — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will present one on detecting threats to airplanes and White House Homeland Security adviser John Brennan will present his findings on intelligence failures. Each agency head will discuss the findings of their own internal reviews and progress in implementing reforms.
For more on this story, read HERE.
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– jpt
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“The State Department has started more aggressively rejecting and rescinding travel visas to the US.”
They should rescind ALL visas immediately from known Al-Qaeda havens. It’s time to start being serious about protecting Americans without worrying about being so damn politically correct!
Posted by: Randy the AC guy | January 5, 2010, 7:17 am 7:17 am
I think it is very illuminating how the president goes out of his way to distance himself from any hot issue. He is “calling them in” for a meeting like he called the bankers in, called the cop and the professor in… The CIA and FBI and homeland security are part of HIS govt now. This security summit is designed to reinforce the visual that he is just a bystander in all of this.Wonder how he would react to one of his kids getting in trouble at school, pretend they weren’t family?
Posted by: cindy | January 5, 2010, 8:00 am 8:00 am
We should follow Israel’s security protocols. One issue we have is that congress and the admin generally don’t have to fly commercially. As a former President of a Fortune 150 company, I can tell you that Janet N. would have been relieved of her duties if nothing else due to a lack of confidence in her abilities.
Posted by: Tom Wilson | January 5, 2010, 8:02 am 8:02 am
I hear ya Tom..but as we have learned, the govt is guided by a set of illogical standards and rules that no business, family or individual could accept.
Posted by: cindy | January 5, 2010, 8:21 am 8:21 am
I would feel more comfortable about this if Mr.Obama faced reality and cleaned house at DHS.Not only Napolitano but the undersecretaries need to go.The DHS has been a patronage posting for women politicians with no conception of security policies or tactics.Ask anybody in the Coast Guard to get a frank discussion about what is going on.
Posted by: Nephron | January 5, 2010, 8:26 am 8:26 am
Look……..this is a simple process, as long as obama is President he will NEVER allow America to defeat muslims…..radical or not! What an amatuer! What a disgrace he is to America!
Posted by: Richard | January 5, 2010, 8:35 am 8:35 am
Randy the AC……..you are absolutely correct. I just don’t understand how (or WHY) others don’t see it. This doesn’t require advanced intellect to see the abject failures of this adsministration!
Posted by: Richard | January 5, 2010, 8:38 am 8:38 am
Is this going to be as sucessful as Obamas job summit??? I guess this is the intelligence summit and I cannot figure out why i have no confidence in this????
Posted by: billy bob | January 5, 2010, 8:39 am 8:39 am
I think Mr.Obama has a lot of assumptions of his own that need to be challenged! It’s obvious that up to now the international terrorist threat was not very high on his agenda. Who is he to throw stones? This guy looks more and more like the best thing he’s good at is lip service.
Posted by: LongT | January 5, 2010, 8:42 am 8:42 am
and btw..regarding “challenging assumptions” and “making assumptions more flexible” what the heck is this mumbo-jumbo?? I thought Obama was AGAINST security personel making assumptions about who the potential terrorist is..isn’t that profiling? LET ME BE CLEAR AND TRANSPARENT about one thing.. if they have “break-out sessions” today, I’m going to throw up!
Posted by: cindy | January 5, 2010, 8:45 am 8:45 am
This doesn’t require advanced intellect to see the abject failures of this adsministration!
Posted by: Richard | Jan 5, 2010 8:38:42 AM
–
Not at all. I agree with that portion of your statement wholeheartedly.
But it does seem to require advanced intellect, a flexible ideology, a moderate temperament, a certain comfort with nuance to see some of the successes of both the administration and the Democrats in Congress. It also requires a grasp on reality and patience.
Posted by: There is no Planet B | January 5, 2010, 9:07 am 9:07 am
The intelligence community’s ability to change its assumptions needs to be more supple, the president believes.
Well, I believe the president should take a dose of his own medicine. Last time I checked, he was the one trying to convince us that we need to back away from using terms such as “war on terror” and “terrorist”. Or that we need to step back from thinking we are at war with Islam. These “terrorists” come from many backgrounds and different areas around the world, but there are certain areas that connect them. 1) They hate the United States. 2) Although not all Muslims are terrorists, the terrorists who have been caught and questioned seem to claim the Muslim faith. 3) They are completely unafraid to murder and/or to die while carrying out their “mission”.
So, if Mr. President would like to have the Intelligence Communities change their “assumptions”, I would suggest he take the first step and realize this “war” for what it is.
Posted by: Shoe | January 5, 2010, 9:09 am 9:09 am
I would suggest he take the first step and realize this “war” for what it is.
Posted by: Shoe | Jan 5, 2010 9:09:52 AM
And I would suggest that he does recognize it for what it is, has resourced the troops in Afghanistan, is sending more, has increased the number of drone attacks in Pakistan, is working with Yemen, has had several counterterrorism successes,and uses the word terrorism quite a bit despite a different framing of the war and a different war posture (one I prefer)– look up how many times he’s used the word terrorism from those counting recently. The right wing myth has been debunked in several places on the internet with transcripts and quotes.
Posted by: progressive mama | January 5, 2010, 9:25 am 9:25 am
“The System Worked”, “No Smoking Gun”.”Isolated Incident”…. These are the answers to the question of… What was the administrations first response to the terrorist attack? Napolitano, Brennan, and Obama stated the above quotes. I would feel safer with Lady GaGa in charge!
Posted by: pauldia | January 5, 2010, 9:36 am 9:36 am
An example: in 2002 a Nigerian traveling to Yemen might not have meant much to the intelligence community. But now with a considerable al Qaeda presence in West Africa and Yemen, such an event means a lot. The intelligence community’s ability to change its assumptions needs to be more supple, the president believes.
============
I really can’t believe this wasn’t already the case. I thought it was the CIA that told the President where new threats were coming from.
Posted by: MayBee | January 5, 2010, 9:51 am 9:51 am
Candidate Obama was so afraid to admit his Muslim ties that his staff moved two Muslim women from behind him during a speech.
The Obama camp went crazy if anyone on thr right used his middle name.
As soon as BHO was elected the complete opposite, suddenly Obama was proud of that middle name and his Muslim background.
I read that a third of all terrorist attacks since 9/11 have happened in 2009. Maybe some in the Muslim world see him as a sellout and a fraud.
Posted by: kyle | January 5, 2010, 10:13 am 10:13 am
Most of the comments here are just venting, with no substance. Some of you would just like the US to nuke the whole Middle East and wait for the dust to clear! There are many professional people working on these issues with skills you only see on your TV shows. Just keep an eye out on your own neighborhood.
Posted by: Gerald | January 5, 2010, 10:18 am 10:18 am
Ask any employee of DHS or any member of the Coast Guard what is going on inside DHS.You will be scared.
Posted by: Nephron | January 5, 2010, 10:35 am 10:35 am
Most of the comments here are just venting, with no substance. Some of you would just like the US to nuke the whole Middle East and wait for the dust to clear!
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Not at all. I want intelligence to be…intelligent so real and emerging threats can be identified.
I’m just floored that most of the guys in Gitmo are from Yemen, yet our President is just now telling the intelligence agencies that maybe young men traveling in and out of Yemen might be a problem worth looking at.
Posted by: MayBee | January 5, 2010, 10:35 am 10:35 am
The Obama Administration as well as this Liberal Congress needs to also call upon themselves to respect, support and properly fund the intelligence and law enforcement community. Obama criticizing the Police department immediately following the Henry Gates race bating incident, Pelosi calling the CIA liars, Holder trying to prosecute interrogators, and a Homeland Security appointee who is unqualified are prime examples of why the intelligence community is broken. Congress and this administration need to take much of the blame for being the reason the system is broken today but are too arrogant to do so and instead put the blame on solely on the intelligence community.
Posted by: Skypilot123 | January 5, 2010, 11:37 am 11:37 am
The U.S. “Intelligence Community” is becoming an oxymoron.
Since when has this “Community” been intelligent? Even the Brits now consider U.S. Intelligence in Afghanistan to be “irrelevant”.
Posted by: Doppelganger | January 5, 2010, 12:02 pm 12:02 pm
These terrorist remind me of how bullies operate. You can try and ignore them but they won’t leave you alone, you can try and be nice to them and they’ll take whatever nice things you give them ….and still beat you up.
From experience,the only way I stopped being bullied was to pick up a 2 by 4 piece of wood and hit them over the head with it.
Reaching out was a good jesture by the President but no matter how good he is to them, they will keep coming after us. It doesn’t matter how many lawyers we give them, what kind of surroundings we place them in they seem determined to frighten us, kill us, and to make life as we know it difficult and much more expensive than it should.
Posted by: david | January 5, 2010, 12:02 pm 12:02 pm
Homeland security says the “security worked” my question would be, for which side?? Deflecting the blame to those who have no power to change the framework that the current administration has set up,..when all is said and done, it all comes down to the buck stops at the top..The responsibility lies with the top officials who have the power to create the changes, to give the people on the front lines the tools needed to keep our nation safe. This is something that can’t be solved by playing pc politics, rehashing the events that have already taken place, we already KNOW what happened, 200 plus human beings came very close to losing their lives…WE GET THAT… tough choices, better yet DECISIONS must be made. Perhaps, it is time to look toward 2012 and for the American voter to make the tough choices that the current administration can’t…
Posted by: Parallex View | January 5, 2010, 12:08 pm 12:08 pm
Again, the intelligence community must function within the framework set-up by the current administration who is in POWER….If fault must be assigned, look toward those who set the boundaries and not the ones who are restricted by those boundaries…………You don’t like how a company is run..vote out the Board of Directors, not the stockholders….DUH
Posted by: Parallex View | January 5, 2010, 12:30 pm 12:30 pm
“President Will Push Today for Intelligence Community to Constantly Challenge Its Assumptions”
Does that mean we will stop releasing Gitmo detainees to Yemen??
Posted by: The War on The War on Terror | January 5, 2010, 12:36 pm 12:36 pm
Talking about constantly challenging your security assumptions, Man, our Greatest Smartest Clueless Leader (GSCL) has no clue a third un-identified person (UIP) was in his house mingling with himself, the Head of a foreign state and his guests at his state party for two months after it had taken place!!!
In God We Trust, so says the Dollar.
Posted by: skinny dog | January 5, 2010, 12:47 pm 12:47 pm
Since it’s creation by the Bush administration Homeland Security has been on auto pilot, failures involving the ‘undi-bomber’ indicate that since the inception of HS, the problems that led to it’s creation, coordination and intel sharing, problems continue throughout the many components of this massive agency,..
re: Last time I checked, he was the one trying to convince us that we need to back away from using terms such as “war on terror” and “terrorist”. Posted by: Shoe
- obviously, you have not really ‘checked’
re: If fault must be assigned, look toward those who set the boundaries and not the ones who are restricted by those boundaries..
like how a company is run..vote out the Board of Directors, not the stockholders.
Posted by: Parallex View
- now all you have to prove, is that Obama in some way prevented the agencies involved from passing information to one another, otherwise, nonsense
re: I’m just floored that most of the guys in Gitmo are from Yemen,
Posted by: MayBee
- are you equally ‘floored’ that Bush released 2 men from Gitmo who were a part of the recent airline fiasco.
Posted by: XX | January 5, 2010, 12:48 pm 12:48 pm
- are you equally ‘floored’ that Bush released 2 men from Gitmo who were a part of the recent airline fiasco.
===========
Wasn’t it just 1?
No, I’m not floored. It was obviously a mistake to release those guys. Let’s learn from it.
Posted by: MayBee | January 5, 2010, 12:54 pm 12:54 pm
Has, uh, Robert Gibbs, uh, . . . uh, lost , uh, confidence? He,uh . . . uh, seems to now use, uh, more uhs than Obama uses periods in his, uh, speech?
Posted by: Ed Taylor | January 5, 2010, 2:07 pm 2:07 pm
It’s been 9 days since the terrorist attack and yet Obama is just now getting around to his National Security Team.
It has been over 8 years since ANY airline attack on a US bound flight but yet in the last 4 months there has been a terrorist attack on a US base, a CIA base overseas and a terrorist attack on an airline. Who does not see the pattern?
Posted by: toby hill | January 5, 2010, 4:44 pm 4:44 pm
XX – The men and women of the different intel agencies do a tough job and walk a fine line in doing so. Obama’s policy of allowing the threat of criminal prosecution of those brave men and women often does prevent one agency from passing information along to other agencies and to “higher ups”. You wanted proof of Obama preventing proper information dissemination, there ya go!
Posted by: RhinoSquid | January 5, 2010, 5:07 pm 5:07 pm
He hasnt done a thing since he has been in the office! No one has a clue anymore whats going on in regards to terroists? At least Bush had colors to warn us–I may be wrong but didnt the demos make fun of that???? Now we have nothing and the Pres is a no decision kinda guy! He will only be a one term kinda guy because he cant make decisions! What a piece of work he is–kinda sad I thought he would be more??
Posted by: Beltbuckle | January 5, 2010, 5:22 pm 5:22 pm