Obama On Airline Security: 'The System Has Failed" - 'I will not tolerate it'

[jefferson_dem]

Obama On Airline Security: 'The System Has Failed'
Jillian Rayfield | January 5, 2010, 5:12PM

After a meeting with his national security advisers today, President Obama said the nation's airline security system had "failed" to thwart the failed Christmas bombing of a Northwest flight.

Obama began by acknowledging the failure that resulted in the Christmas day attack: "When a suspected terrorist is able to board a plane with explosives on Christmas day, the system has failed in a potentially disastrous way."

He continued to describe the findings of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's initial review, before saying that "the bottom line is this: the U.S. government had sufficient information to have uncovered this plot and potentially disrupt the Christmas day attack. But our intelligence community failed to connect to those dots."

"In other words," he said, "this was not a failure to collect intelligence. It was a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence that we already had."

Obama continued:

I will accept that intelligence by its nature is imperfect, but it is increasingly clear that intelligence was not fully analyzed, or fully leveraged. That's not acceptable, and I will not tolerate it."We have to do better. And we will do better," he said.

The President also addressed the decision to halt the transfer of Yemeni detainees from Guantanamo Bay back to their home country. "Given the unsettled situation," he said, "we will not be transferring additional detainees back to Yemen at this time. But make no mistake: We will close Guantanamo prison."

Obama concluded: "We have to constantly adapt and evolve" in order to effectively fight al Qaeda, and "the margin for error is slim."

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http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/obama-on-airline-security-the-system-has-failed.php

[tblue]

1. I trust him on this. Does not want this crap happening on his watch,

unlike the previous Resident.

[doc03]

2. What the heck is this, a President that

accepts responsibility and dosen't blame it on the privious Administration, unheared of. :wow:

[rateyes]

3. That's good. Now,

I wish he wouldn't tolerate a watered-down health care bill. That piece of legislation has more power to bring down this nation than any terrorist.

[thereismore]

4. We knew that much. But was it deliberate and who is responsible. nt

[FLyellowdog]

5. A take charge kinda guy, if you ask me.

But nobody did. :shrug:

[phantom power]

6. I sort of wish he'd put a completely different spin on this...

something more like "Terrorism is one of many risks we all live with and we should not give too much weight to these two-bit attempts." Of course, that would only work assuming we were a country of adults, instead of a country also home to millions of pant-soiling conservatives.

[mopinko]

7. my dear president, please, please

fire someone.

[denem]

8. "Nobody could have imagined .... "

Obama should have stuck to the script;
:sarcasm:

[avaistheone1]

9. Love it.

lol