Human error, not turf battles, at fault in Christmas attack on airliner, top U.S. official says

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President Obama’s leading counter-terrorism advisor said today that human error – not turf battles among federal intelligence officials – allowed an Al Qaeda-trained operative to carry out an alleged attempt to bomb a Detroit-bound airplane on Christmas Day.

Deputy National Security Advisor John O. Brennan, in appearances on several Sunday-morning television news programs, also said there was “no smoking gun” of intelligence gathered by U.S. officials that would have directly suggested the Flight 253 attack was imminent.

“There was no piece of intelligence that said, ‘This guy’s a terrorist. He’s going to get on a plane,’ ” Brennan said. Later, he added: “It was the failure to integrate and piece together those bits and pieces of information.”

Brennan is leading the Obama-ordered review of intelligence-gathering and watchlisting efforts, which failed to block Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from boarding the plane despite several red flags known to U.S. officials – including a personal warning from Abdulmutallab’s father that the young man was displaying extremist tendencies.

Brennan said the review had so far yielded no evidence that various agencies withheld that intelligence from one another, as was the case with rival agencies in the lead-up to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

“There is no indication whatsoever that any agency or department was not trying to share information” on Abdulmutallab, Brennan said. There were ‘some lapses. There was some human error.”

He explained the decision to close the U.S. Embassy in Yemen today by saying intelligence officials believed there was a threat of another Al Qaeda attack there. And he said there was evidence that Al Qaeda was training new operatives in Yemen to send “to the West” for possible attacks.

-- Jim Tankersley