Obama delays comments on failed Christmas attack on jetliner
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President Obama’s comments on the security failures associated with the failed Christmas Day attack on a U.S.-bound jetliner have been pushed back to later today.
The White House announced the 90-minute delay until 4:30 p.m. EST, but gave no reason for shifting the time.
Obama is expected to discuss the declassified results of the latest review of the incident and to recommend changes in dealing with the airline security issues.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, has been charged with attempted murder and other crimes in connection with the airline incident. Authorities said he smuggled a device onto the Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day.
The device was ignited, but did not detonate. Passengers and crew subdued Abdulmutallab and the plane landed safely.
After the incident, the administration first minimized the problems, with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and White House spokesman Robert Gibbs saying the security system worked. They later said their remarks were taken out of context after Republicans complained that the system had failed.
Obama, who was on vacation in Hawaii over the holidays, acknowledged that there had been security lapses. In the following days he toughened his language, saying there had been systemic and human errors and that the intelligence community had failed to connect the dots of available information.
The president ordered an investigation into how Abdulmutallab had brought the device through security and on to the flight. Obama also ordered his administration to look at how the security watch list system worked.
Abdulmutallab’s father had told the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria that he believed his son had become radicalized by exposure to an Al Qaeda-associated group in Yemen. The son was listed on a database of suspected terrorists, one of about 550,000 names. He was never moved to a stricter no-fly listing of about 3,400 names and his visa to the United States was never lifted.
He was, however, flagged for additional questioning by Customs and Border Protection officials who would have questioned Adbulmutallab on his landing in Detroit.
Politically, Republicans are expected to continue to question the administration’s handling of the incident, broadening the issue to include how to deal with detainees at the prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Some conservatives have called for the dismissal of members of the Obama administration who may have erred in dealing with the Christmas Day incident.
“I don’t know what the final outcome in terms of hiring and firing will be,” Gibbs told reporters this week.
The latest official caught in the net of criticism is National Counterterrorism Director Michael Leiter. He was at his headquarters on Christmas after the terrorist attempt, but went on a planned family vacation the next day. Leiter was in regular, extended classified discussions with the White House, national security staff, and other key leaders during the break, officials said.
Several Senate hearings on the Christmas incident have been scheduled.
--Michael Muskal
