EXCLUSIVE: Obama Got Pre-Christmas Intelligence Briefing About Terror Threats to "Homeland"

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Newsweek

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.

The senior official said that beginning in early December, based on reports coming in from intelligence agencies, policy-makers had begun tracking a stream of information which alluded to a possible holiday-period plot against the US orchestrated from somewhere in Pakistan. However, the official said, this reporting later turned out to be "garbled" and it was determined that the threat probably was a washout. The official denied that the White House received any report, representing the concensus of US intelligence agencies, warning that a Holiday-period plot originating in Yemen and targeting the US homeland could be in the works.


Read more: http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/declassified/archive/2010/01/01/exclusive-obama-got-pre-christmas-intelligence-briefing-about-terror-threats-to-homeland.aspx

[SemiCharmedQuark]

1. They're (Huffington Post) trying to equate this with Bush's PDB

Even though according to Newsweek itself this is not the case.

[PatrynXX]

8. Obama Vs Bush Vs planes from airports we can't control.

Obama , well we don't know. Are we pulling a Fox Gossip Channel thing or something?
Bush we know he had several warnings months in advance. Any nutball with an IQ above 0 coulda figured that one out but Bush didn't.

We are still dealing with a plane from outside the USA. It would lead to the spot that the plane took off from to be at fault.

[No Elephants]

15. Bush was warned that Al Qaida was planning an attack in the U.S.

[DallasNE]

30. Of Course

That is the sole purpose.

[Tab]

2. Yeah, and I got a pre-Christmas warning against my family

that it originated in Yemen and could strike America (and my house) at any time.

That's well different than a warning that a specific person is poised to strike, etc., which I certainly wuold not have IGNORED.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

3. It's not even that good. Yemen wasn't even mentioned.

So there was no "who" "what" or "where".

[No Elephants]

16. Maybe Yemen was not mentioned in the memo, but our intelligence folk did

have info about an attack out of Yemen. They even had info that this particular man was being prepared for an attack.

Please see also Reply 11.

[lamp_shade]

4. This is news? To whom?

[shotten99]

5. In all fairness, both these warnings were worthless

Bin Laden determined to attack in the U.S. doesn't really tell anyone very much, especially to a dumbass like Bush.

The key here is to defend the onslaught of forthcoming garbage.

[timtom]

17. Bin Laden???

Now, that's embarrassing.

The article made no mention of the probably-deceased bin Laden.

[penndragon69]

20. You forget...

The PDB that condi had to read to lil bushie ALSO included fbi and cia reports of known
terrorists who were taking flying lessons in the United STates.
Of course our lil drunken nose picker didn't understand because the story said nothing
about a goat!

[NecklyTyler]

6. Big difference here, the Bush Administration intentional ignored the warnings in 2001

After it was made known that there were clear intelligence warnings available to the Bush Administration (which they chose to ignore for some reason???), we lost the World Trade Center in New York. Following the revelation of Bush's actions, the administration 'dumbed down' intelligence gathering to keep it from happening again. Not keep the United States from being attacked again, but rather keep Bush from being burned in his march to war.

President Obama is working with what Bush left him. Obviously Leon Panetta has a tough job ahead of him to rebuild our information gathering capabilities to the level we need

[No Elephants]

10. We should not still be working with what Dummya left. Napolitano, Panetta et. al. should have

reviewed procedures A to Z. There was no reason to assume it was okay just to plod on with anything Dummya's administration instituted. It's been almost a year. At this point, implying that Bush is responsible for the Christmas incident is not justified.

[NecklyTyler]

12. Bush and his administration had six or seven years to manipulate our capabilities

The Obama Administration has to first find out where the damage has been done, then they have to fix it. The whole while this is going on, the system is in constant use. It is kind of like making an engine repair to a car while driving down the freeway.

The Bushes didn't leave a road map of the things they disabled, and they covered their tracks at many different levels. With the mess Bush left us, I am quite surprised the Christmas bomber was the only incident in a year

[No Elephants]

19. There is no evidence that anyone ordered any systematic review of the Bushco procedures.

So spinning the impossiblity of finding the errors if one were actually looking for them is just your imagination working overtime and your partisanship speaking. As the Obama administration itself says, this issue should supersede partisanship.

For that matter, you don't know what the Obama transition team was or was not told about these matters as I am sure whatever they were told was kept confidential.

What you do know is that your government failed you. It failed you on 911 and it failed you this past Christmas. Whose fault that was is a lot less important than the system be fixed.

[Aviation Pro]

31. No, Panetta and Napolitano should have directed their....

...subordinate divisions to review the procedures.

Why is it we focus on one or two "heroic" individuals to do the work of thousands. Has anyone here managed a multi-million dollar project by themselves?

[No Elephants]

35. Literal much? I did not mean they had to do the nitty gritty work themselves. And I don't look

to "heroic" individuals to do everything. Please see, for example, Reply #11. Nor do I consider either Napolitano or Panetta heroic in any way.

Point is, they neither did it nor directed anyone else to do it, yet people want to blame Bush, and Bush alone, almost a year after he left office, because we are still mindlessly using his procedures. But, they also want to blame him and him alone for 911. Both are ludicrous stances. And neither stance is likely to lead to anything makes us one whit safer, which should be everyone's focus. Instead, all people seem to focus on is knee jerk partisan finger pointing.

We really do deserve the government we get.

[Vinca]

7. You know how the right is going to spin this.

Darn that Obama . . . he should have gone to Amsterdam to check in passengers instead of going to Hawaii.:sarcasm:

[PatrynXX]

9. Rush does have a bit of a problem saying that this time.

Since he was (shock) golfing in Hawaii then put on an act about chest pains just to bring up that there's nothing wrong with health care in Hawaii.

Seriously rush.. quit Rushing yourself. It's the Insurance companies we were going after. Shit for brains.

[No Elephants]

11. This is not about Obama v. Bush. A President cannot perform every single task in government.

This is about our intelligence/security agencies. We did receive the attackers name from his father a month before the attempt, who told us that his son had been radicalized while at school (in the U.K.) and he (the father) feared the son was a danger to the U.S. We also had intelligence that this man was being prepared for an attack. We knew this guy had been banned from the U.K. Yet, he was on a watch list with over 500,000 names on it, which makes it a joke. He was not on our no fly list, nor was he even our list of passengers who need to get extra scrutiny.

Once again, our government failed to pull together various pieces of information and protect us, even though Homeland Security was formed precisely to make sure info was shared and pulled together.

This is not Obama's fault, nor will it be solved simply by having an agency head or two step down. Our intelligence/national security system was broken on 911 and it's still broken. It needs to be reviewed top to bottom. And, if agencies are simply institutionally incapable of sharing in a meaningful way, maybe they need to be combined. CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, maybe even Secret Service, too.

Sure, there can be special unis within one agency, but someone has to have overall control; and the operations have to be not only merged, but streamlined. Duplication would be avoided. Things would be done faster. Heck, we might even realize a cost savings in the long term.

[nyy1998]

45. You make some good arguments

But politics doesn't work that way. The right will try to attack Obama on this, and this is one of the few tool Democrats have to counter those attacks. By saying Bush screwed up and we're still trying to fix the changes but it's hard to change 8 years of damage in 11 months.

[droidamus2]

13. Questionable

The one little thing that stands out to me about this article and writer is his/her use of the term 'Intelligence Czar'. Does that give us an indication as to where their political leanings are? This sounds like typical rightwing propaganda (as usual it has the flavor of a 5 year olds thinking) of 'well.. what we did isn't bad because those damn Liberals/Democrats did the same thing'. I agree that if the agencies involved can't play well with others then maybe they should be completely reorganized to eliminate the problem.

[No Elephants]

22. To what are you referring as "questionable?"

" This sounds like typical rightwing propaganda (as usual it has the flavor of a 5 year olds thinking) of 'well.. what we did isn't bad because those damn Liberals/Democrats did the same thing'. "


Maybe. But most of the DU posts on this subject are the flip side of that. People seem less concerned that a "massive" foul up re: safety occurred than they are concerned that this administration be criticized or blamed for it. ("Massive" was Obama's word.)

Blame the Netherlands. Blame Bush, even though he has been out of office for a year, etc. But don't hint that the Obama administration may have dropped the ball on (a) reviewing Bushcho's procedures top to bottom (seriously, EVERYONE knew they were incompentent) or on (b) this particular incident.

Bizarre, IMO, to consider ONLY partisanship when our safety and that of our families hang in the balance. Again, the Obama administration--when it gets criticized by Republicans--says this issue should supersede partisanship, yet the Obama administration keeps reminding us they were only following the procedures put in place under Bush. Sorry, after almost a year in office, you can't blame Bush.

[droidamus2]

40. Well...

I was originally just making a statement about the sense I got from the article (yes I do tend to be philosophically/liberally oriented not necessarily partisan) not how I feel about the particular situation. I think the situation goes to show that any particular party or President has a hell of a time trying to get control of these different agencies. Each agency seems to think they are the do all and end all of security and that if anybody is going to get credit it will be them. Personally I think this agency centric view rather than a overall security centric view is ridiculous. Since the CIA, FBI, NSA or whatever are ongoing agencies and Presidents and parties in control change I think those that lead the security apparatus have a tendency to think that they are above the control of the executive or legislative branch (think CIA doing bs to raise money outside of what Congress gives them).

[notadmblnd]

41. How was this a massive foul-up?

The attack was unsuccessful. The flight originated in another country. If there's any blame to be placed, it is with the airlines and the use of cheap, uneducated, inexperienced people as checkers. How the guy got through and on the plane is where blame should be placed. The attempted attack was amateurish at best and thanks to the quick thinking of a foreigner, a possible tragedy was averted before the plane even landed in the states.

So please, explain to me how this was a security foul up by this administration?

[no_hypocrisy]

14. I really wish Obama would stop using the term, "Homeland" and return to "this country".

The former smacks of fascist terminology of the Third Reich.

[wordpix]

18. reich on

[winyanstaz]

28. yup

[JDPriestly]

29. +1

[TheWatcher]

43. And yet he doesn't.

Makes one wonder.

[onehandle]

21. There are warnings every Christmas season. Chatter goes up to rattle American's chains.

No specifics, just chatter.

This is not a White House level fuck up like 9/11 was.

[No Elephants]

23. Where did you get your info about warnings every Xmas and chatter increasing every Xmas season?

I just did a guick google, but didn't turn up anything like that. (I did see something about chatter increasing every Spring and Summer.)

[nyy1998]

46. Homeland Security used to regularly move up the "warning levels" up a bit.

They usually do it around every major holiday(and whenever Bush wanted to scare us).

[MetaTrope]

24. Was there even any mention of aircraft in the report?

I still don't get the "al-Qaeda" obsession with aircraft, when there are far more vulnerable areas of travel infrastracture in the country. It's like a bunch of thieves going after Fort Knox while every bank has its doors and vaults wide open. From which one might infer that their sole aim is to keep the war profiteering pot simmering.

[high density]

25. I demand Obama go back into the past and personally screen people at Schiphol Airport!

Now now now!

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.

[disndat]

26. Yes, but

9/11 was an inside job.

[TomClash]

27. Boo!

Like one chucklehead on an international flight trying to light his privates with "explosive" PETN is the same as highjacking four domestic aircraft simultaneously and crashing them into strategically important buildings.

[jpak]

32. Yeah Obama told them "STFU - you covered your ass" followed by "now watch this drive..."

:thumbsdown:

[Barack_America]

33. Call me back when he ignores something called "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."

What exactly did they expect the President to do with "intelligence" presented to him as "garbled" and "probably a washout"? Close the borders? Enact martial law?

The response to this failed, half-assed terrorist attempt has been utterly ridiculous.

[No Elephants]

37. Bin Laden was determined to strike in the U.S.

Do you think that was so specific as to be preventable? Even if they had found and killed Bin Laden as soon as they read that memo, the attack would still have occurred.

This time, though, we had the man's name and intent to hurt the U.S. from his father, and we had intelligence that he was being prepared for an attack.

As I posted upthread, I do not blame President Obama for this, but I think his administration messed up. And he thinks the same thing.

[Barack_America]

38. Wrong.

"we had intelligence that he was being prepared for an attack"

We had intelligence that SOMEONE was being prepared for an attack. We did not have intelligence that this specific person was being prepared for anything. We had intelligence that his family was concerned about his leanings towards Islamic extremism, but that's about it. The possible attack that the President was briefed about seems to have had nothing to do with the actual attack at all. The actual attack originated in Yemen and not in Pakistan, like the "garbled" info the President was informed of.

This sort of making connections when there are none and assuming that one thing must be referring to another is very dangerous.

The info that Bush got about Bin Laden was also much more specific than you're suggesting. It was at least known Bin Laden was interested in using airplanes in such an attack even if the exact dates and targets were unknown.

[tomhayes]

34. Isn't the difference

That Obama hold regular briefings on counter-terrosim while Bush's cabinet never met about it before 9/11??

This is like a repeat of the Clinton years - where the media puts out garbage and folks eat it up as truth.

[RamboLiberal]

36. Check out this DU LBN thread just started

White House Adviser Briefed in October on Underwear Bomb Technique http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4207953

White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan was briefed in October on an assassination attempt by Al Qaeda that investigators now believe used the same underwear bombing technique as the Nigerian suspect who tried to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day, U.S. intelligence and administration officials tell NEWSWEEK.

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/declassified/archive/2010/01/02/white-house-advisor-briefed-in-october-on-underwear-bomb-technique.aspx

I want to see where this all leads, but personally I'm not going to sit here like a Freeper and not dare to criticize the Obama administration where they need to be criticized if they F*cked up on this one.

IMHO one of the failings so far of this administration is believing way to much of what the Bush administration told them and not by this time having done a top to bottom review of each of their departments to make sure changes take place and that information and databases were being shared among all responsible agencies. And that the damn near useless no fly list should've been undergoing changes and winnowing so it would be useful. Also that visas be revoked or at least reviewed if you end up on a terrorism watch list.

Maybe a guy sewing explosives in the crotch of his underwear would never be detected even by a body scanner or a pat down but at the least the clown on this flight should've been sending up red flags when he tried to buy an airline ticket to the U.S.

[Barack_America]

39. In August 2009 a Saudi Prince was almost killed by a suicide bomber with PTEN in his underwear.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/12/27/bergen.terror.plot/index.html

That is almost certainly why this briefing occurred and not because of some specific intelligence about the Christmas Day attack.

[RamboLiberal]

42. That didn't mean this wasn't a new way for explosives to get on planes

After all we've been taking our shoes off at airports since that dimbulb Reid tried to light his in 2001. And putting our limited liquids in a baggie also since the British uncovered that plot. So at this briefing Obama's intelligence was supposed to think underwear bombers were aimed only at Saudi princes?

At the least I would hope TSA and overseas air security services would be briefed on this new possible method of getting explosives past security.

This is like the numbnuts like Condi Rice & company who in July 2001 prevented Bush was staying in a hotel at a summit in Italy because of the possibility of airplanes being flown in to his hotel and assuming such a plot could only be aimed at Bush and not buildings in the U.S. even after the Aug 6th PDB.

[wordpix]

44. Leiter, head of the Nat'l Counterterrorism Center, is a BUSH appointee

http://www.nctc.gov/about_us/director_bio.html


Michael E. Leiter
Director
National Counterterrorism Center

Michael E. Leiter was sworn in as the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) on June 12, 2008, upon his confirmation by the U.S. Senate and after serving as the Acting Director since November 2007.

The NCTC has two core missions. The first is to serve as the primary organization in the U.S. government for analysis and integration of all terrorism intelligence. In this role Mr. Leiter reports to Dennis C. Blair, the Director of National Intelligence. The second mission is to conduct strategic operational planning for counterterrorism activities integrating all elements of U.S. national power. In this role he reports to President Obama. snip