White House Adviser Briefed in October on Underwear Bomb Technique

[IndianaGreen]

White House Adviser Briefed in October on Underwear Bomb Technique

Newsweek

By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball

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.

The briefing to Brennan was delivered at the White House by Muhammad bin Nayef, Saudi Arabia’s chief counterterrorism official. In late August, Nayef had survived an assassination attempt by an operative dispatched by the Yemeni branch of Al Qaeda who was pretending to turn himself in. The operative had tried to kill the Saudi prince by detonating a bomb on his body, but stumbled on his way into the prince's palace and blew himself up.

Saudi officials initially thought the bomb had been secreted in the operative's anal cavity. But after investigating the matter more thoroughly, they concluded it had likely been sewn into his underwear, thereby allowing the operative to bypass security checks before his meeting with the prince. A main purpose of Nayef's briefing for Brennan was to alert U.S. officials to the use of the underwear technique.

U.S. officials now suspect that Nayef's attempted assassin and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian suspect aboard the Northwest flight, had the same bomb maker in Yemen, intelligence experts tell NEWSWEEK. At the briefing for Brennan, Nayef was concerned because “he didn’t think were paying enough attention” to the growing threat from Al Qaeda in Yemen, said a former U.S. intelligence official familiar with the briefing. (A senior Saudi official told NEWSWEEK Saturday that “we don't have any concerns that the U.S. government isn't sufficiently concerned about Yemen. In the latter part of the Bush administration and in this administration, the U.S. has been very focused on the dangers emanating from Yemen.”)

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

[rzemanfl]

1. Oh goody, now we can expect to get a prostate exam when we

fly.

[IndianaGreen]

2. I think that is where this is heading to

Drive, not fly!

[Parker CA]

3. Newsweek is now doing everything they can to bring Obama down. nt

[jenmito]

4. And some posters are more than happy to assist in spreading their words. n/t

[IndianaGreen]

5. Clearly neither of you have read the article, so blinded by the burning incense

Much of the blame for the breakdown is being aimed at the National Counterterrorism Center, a unit of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which was created as part of a host of 9/11 reforms aimed at promoting better information sharing within the U.S. intelligence community. Frances Fragos Townsend, President Bush’s chief homeland-security adviser, says that analysts at the NCTC should have been pushing, or pinging, the system for more information on Abdulmutallab. “It was NCTC’s responsibility to connect the dots, and ask for additional dots if they don’t have enough,” she said. Instead, the original report about the visit of Abdulmutallab’s father appears to have been dropped in a “dead-letter file.” NCTC officials have declined to comment.

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

[Parker CA]

6. Their titles are inflammatory. They bury real info deep bc they have to have some real

facts, but they lead with the crap headlines.

[IndianaGreen]

8. The CIA did their job. Homeland Security was never informed. TSA lacks a leader thanks to DeMint.

The fault lies squarely on National Counterterrorism Center. Heads need to roll!

On Tuesday, October 6, 2009, President Barack Obama visited the National Counterterrorism Center and told officials that their work is keeping the United States safe and more united than at any other time in the nation's history. He said the country and the military need their work now more than ever to disrupt, dismantle and defeat terrorist organizations such as al-Qaida. President Obama said he uses the center's "product" every day to make national security decisions and that officials' achievements are found in attacks that never happen.

http://www.nctc.gov/

I think Obama needs to fire Michael Leiter, Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, just as JFK fired Allen Dulles as Director of CIA after the Bay of Pigs fiasco.

Leiter is a Bush appointee.

[Parker CA]

10. That may very well be what needs to happen. I suspect that someone is going to pay for this, but

I'm not sure who it will be.

My original point was that rather than leading with the info you've quoted, broken down into a headline, thus laying blame on the correct parties, Newsweek's headline takes a swing directly at Obama's WH which is misleading, intentionally so.

[IndianaGreen]

11. A valid criticism on your part about Newsweek

My criticism is that there are a lot of Bush holdovers still in critical positions in government, particularly the Pentagon. As long as they remain, we can expect the incompetence shown by the likes of Michael Leiter at the NCTC.

[Parker CA]

12. I can only agree with that. Eliminate the problematic areas and replace them with competent minds.

[Phx_Dem]

14. Exactly. Buried under the inflamatory headline . . .

The briefing for Brennan could raise questions on Capitol Hill about how widely information was shared within the government about the apparently new technique used by Al Qaeda. A senior administration official said, however, that within a week after the assassination attempt on Nayef, President Obama had dispatched Brennan to Saudi Arabia to discuss the attack. “The October visit by Prince Nayef to Washington was part of this ongoing cooperation, which included developing the forensics out of the attack,” the official said. “That forensics information was widely shared within the U.S. government, as is all information about the evolving threats and tactics employed by our enemies.”

<SNIP>

(And then, of course, the last paragraph of the article)

White House officials say President Obama has been keenly focused on the Qaeda threat from Yemen for months. As the NEWSWEEK story reports, the president has authorized a covert war in the country: when Yemeni jets bombed Qaeda targets on Dec. 17 and 24 (including a strike that tried, but failed, to kill al-Awlaki), the United States supplied intelligence, missiles, and military support. American spies and special forces are on the ground, assisting the Yemenis.


And the last paragraph is what makes Joe Liberman sound like such a moron when he says we need to make Yemen a focus on the 'war on terror.' Duh, Droopy. We already have.

[jenmito]

15. Exactly. The title COULD'VE read: "President Obama has been keenly focused on the Qaeda threat from

Yemen for months." But they'd rather make him look incompetent.

[jenmito]

13. I DID read the article. The point is the misleading title, giving a misleading headline for the MSM

to pick up. Not everybody listens to the entire story. Some just get the headline and THAT'S what sticks.

[Vattel]

7. The terrorist's dilemma:

boxers or briefs

[northernlights]

9. +100

goood one! :rofl: