Obama releases statement on preliminary security reviews
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Today was the deadline President Obama set Tuesday for preliminary reviews of the investigations into terrorism watch list and airport screening policies. He released a short statement this morning regarding those reviews, vowing to meet with agency heads when he is back in Washington on Tuesday. Here’s the statement:
This morning, I spoke with [Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism] John Brennan about preliminary assessments from the ongoing consultations I have ordered into the human and systemic failures that occurred leading up to the attempted act of terrorism on Christmas Day and about our government-wide efforts at continued vigilance on homeland security and counterterrorism efforts. In a separate call, I spoke with Sec. [Janet] Napolitano to receive an update on both the Department of Homeland Security review of detection capabilities and the enhanced security measures in place since the Christmas Day incident. I anticipate receiving assessments from several agencies this evening and will review those tonight and over the course of the weekend. On Tuesday, in Washington, I will meet personally with relevant agency heads to discuss our ongoing reviews as well as security enhancements and intelligence-sharing improvements in our homeland security and counterterrorism operations.
-- Alana Semuels in Honolulu