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FLIGHT
253: Danger Averted,
But Why Were Dots Not Connected?
BY
ERNEST COREA (IDN)
WASHINGTON
DC - The greeter at a “family friendly” restaurant often hands
over a sheet of printed paper and a set of returnable crayons to the
younger members of a party arriving for a meal. The paper contains word
games and other puzzles that can protect the young ones against boredom
while adults pore over their menus as if their lives depended on their
selections. Almost invariably, the puzzles include a “connect the
dots” exercise. Five and six-year-olds are said to revel in this,
connecting the dots that create an image of, most often, an animal.
Connecting the dots -– in a different context and at another level of
thinking -- is precisely what the brightest and best of the U.S.
government’s security and intelligence apparatus could not do in the
months leading up to what could have been a horrendous Christmas Day
disaster (2009).
DETAILS
For the benefit of those who might have forgotten: On Dec. 25, 2009, a
23-year-old Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, travelling on Northwest
Airline Flight 253 from Amsterdam’s Schipol airport to Detroit,
Michigan attempted to detonate an explosive device which would have
destroyed the aircraft and possibly killed all 279 passengers and 11
crew members on board.
Abdulmutallab, or Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) which has
claimed credit for the attempted attack, could have been technologically
challenged. For whatever reason, the bomb did not explode but ignited
instead, injuring Abdulmutallab and two more passengers.
The flight crew, supported by some passengers, subdued Abdulmutallab,
and held him immobile until the plane landed in Detroit where he was
hand over to Customs and Border Protection officers.
Subsequently, FBI agent Theodore James Peiseg presented a criminal
complaint to the District Court of Eastern Michigan alleging that
Abdulmutallab willfully attempted to destroy an aircraft, and placed a
destructive device on that aircraft.
The incident was a grim reminder to the U.S. -- and, indeed, to others
-- that danger continuously lurks.
One of the most frustrating aspects of the abortive bomb attack is that,
as disclosed by the White House, is that sufficient information was
available to identify Abdulmutallab as a likely operative of AQAP and
prevent him from boarding flight 253.
Unfortunately, although the data that could have helped to identify
Abdulmutallab and his potential involvement in a bomb attack was
available “within the system,” these various pieces of information
were not drawn together and analysed as a composite.
President Obama said in a televised broadcast on Jan. 5: “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 those dots, which would
have placed the suspect on the ‘no fly’ list.
“In other words, this was not a failure to collect intelligence; it
was a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence that we
already had.”
UNCONNECTED DOTS
What are the dots that the experts could not connect? Here are the best
known of them:
-- AQAP had previously attempted to use explosives sewn into a suicide
bomber’s clothing as an assassination device.
-- Some reports had indicated that AQAP was planning an attack on the
U.S. using the services of a Nigerian.
-- Abdulmuttallab is a Nigerian who had been issued a multiple entry
visa by the U.S. but misspelling of his name initially made the State
Department believe that he did not possess a valid U.S. visa.
-- In November 2009, Abdulmutallab’s father, a former banker, met
officials of the U.S. embassy in Abuja, Nigeria and shared with them his
concerns that his son who had planned to travel to Yemen might have
“come under the influence of unidentified extremists.”
-- The father’s information that the son had turned into an extremist
was not connected with the son’s possession of an entry visa for the
U.S.
-- Abdulmutallab’s name was on TIDE (Terrorist Identities Datamart
Environment) but security and intelligence staff did not “search all
available databases to uncover additional derogatory information that
could have been correlated with Abdulmutallab.” Without such
information, his name could not be added to the ‘no fly’ list.
-- Information technology within the counterterrorism community “did
not sufficiently enable the correlation of data that would have enabled
analysts to highlight the relevant threat information.”
-- Abdulmutallab paid some $3000 in cash for his ticket, did not check
any baggage, and carried no outerwear although his stated destination
was Detroit in the cold month of December.
-- Analysts highlighted the evolving “strategic threat” AQAP posed
to the West and the U.S. in particular, but the counteterrorism
community “failed to follow-up further on this ‘strategic warning’
to further identify and correlate critical indicators of AQAP’s threat
to the U.S.”
ASTOUNDING
In an interview with the newspaper “USA Today,” Gen. Jim Jones, a
former commander of the Marine Corps and currently Obama’s National
Security Adviser, said that the public would “feel a certain shock”
when they read an account of the missed clues that, if recognized and
integrated, could have prevented the alleged Christmas Day bomber from
boarding Flight 253 with a lethal “dose” of “pentaerythritol
tetranitrate” or PETN hidden in his underpants.
Jones was right. The public was, indeed, shocked, and bewildered. The
country’s first line of defence had so much information on the alleged
bomber and allowed all that to pass by?
The public could be excused for wondering whether the security and
intelligence apparatus had been competing to outdo the “Keystone
Cops” and the recruits in “Police Academy.”
When Flight 253 was in flight, an intelligence officer on the ground
examined the manifest, which is available only after a flight has taken
off, felt that there were many suspicious circumstances about
Abdulmutallab, and marked him down for additional or special questioning
when the flight landed in Detroit.
This could go down in history as the world’s best known unintended
definition of optimism. If Abdulmutallab’s plans had succeeded, there
would not have even been a body to examine in Detroit let alone a living
being to question.
The authorities, when they suspected that the flight had a potential
terrorist on board, took a nonchalant attitude towards the grim
possibilities rather than alert the captain and crew, suggest that the
suspected terrorist be overpowered and made immobile, as he was,
eventually, and direct the captain to land at the closest airport.
AFTERMATH
Obama, as commander-in-chief, has taken responsibility for the errors
that prevented the security and intelligence system from identifying the
threat that Abdulmutallab posed and preventing him from getting on board
a flight into the U.S.
The president in his public statements was at pains to point out that
what caused the problem was a “systemic failure” and not to point
the finger at individuals or specific government departments.
The “buck stops with me,” he said, echoing President Truman’s
dramatic phrase. Every president since Truman is said to have repeated
the Trumanism at least once.
In Obama’s case, although he was said to be livid about the lapses, he
was making a deliberate effort not to demoralize security and
intelligence personnel some of whose colleagues have died while
attempting to protect the U.S. Whether “heads will roll” later is
something to be watched.
Obama has, as well, instructed several Cabinet secretaries (ministers)
and heads of agencies to strengthen national security immediately. Such
actions, he said, “are required to ensure that “standards, practices
and business process that have been in place since the aftermath of 9/11
are appropriately robust.”
He has been attacked from the left for supporting forms of enhanced
airport security that will be an “intrusion of privacy.” He has been
attacked from the right by critics whose view appears to be that the
best way to deal with a suspected terrorist is to waterboard him, then
lock him up in a solitary confinement cell and throw away the key.
Both forms of attack will undoubtedly continue, which is natural in any
society that encourages dissent and protects it by law. That is what
makes the task of all those connected with national security
particularly difficult.
To concede the point made by critics on the left and backtrack on “new
and improved” security screenings and other defensive measures at
airports would be a dereliction of responsibility. If there should be a
“next time” the absence of such measures will be roundly condemned.
What is required is to ensure through scientific testing and, in some
cases, even by “trial and error,” that the new measures actually
work. What is equally important is that they should be deployed
uniformly and not on the basis of unwarranted profiling.
As for the argument, whether it be made openly or by innuendo, that the
U.S. should throw its values out of the window and turn national
security arrangements into instruments of fear, prejudice and anger,
Obama deserves the last word in rebuttal.
His view? “We will strengthen our defences, but we will not succumb to
a siege mentality that sacrifices the open society and liberties and
values that we cherish as Americans, because great and proud nations
don't hunker down and hide behind walls of suspicion and mistrust. “
Time will tell.
[Source:
IDN-InDepthNews
| Analysis That Matters]
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The
writer has
served as Sri Lanka's ambassador to Canada, Cuba, Mexico, and the USA.
He was Chairman of the Commonwealth's Select Committee on the media and
development.
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