Too Many Dolts to Connect
U.S. was more focused on al-Qaeda's plans abroad than for homeland, report on airline bomb plot finds By Karen DeYoung and Michael A. Fletcher Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, January 8, 2010; A01 By concentrating on the strategic threat posed by the al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen and its plans for attacking U.S. targets there, U.S. intelligence agencies failed to focus on the group's preparations for a direct strike in this country, a White House review of the Dec. 25 attempted airline bombing has concluded. That lapse, along with insufficient attention to separate warnings that a specific person -- Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab -- may have been recruited by extremists in Yemen, led to a breakdown in systems designed to "connect the dots" about an imminent threat to the homeland, President Obama said Thursday in announcing the findings.
"The U.S. government had the information . . . to potentially uncover this plot and disrupt the attack," he said. "Rather than a failure to collect or share intelligence, this was a failure to connect and understand the intelligence that we already had."
. . . Assigning responsibility to top intelligence and homeland security officials for establishing accountability within their agencies, Obama said he is "less interested in passing out blame than I am in learning from and correcting these mistakes."
The Department of Homeland Security (how I detest that word 'homeland') has 225,000 dolts bumping into the desks and unable to get rid of Katrina's toxic trailers, much less find anyone who has already been turned in by his father as a possible terrorist.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who also spoke after the president's address, said "Abdulmutallab is a challenging new type of al-Qaeda recruit."
That astounding and illuminating statement must have brought some chuckles over at al Qaeda, The mightiest nation on earth can't even keep out a man turned in by his own father. For this, we fund Janet's ability to challenge with $1 billion a week. Six million dollars an hour, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Even with this tragic sum, Janet Napolitano has been unable to establish accountability within her dolt domain. (Dolt: noun; someone who is not very bright)
(Wikipedia) On March 1, 2003, DHS absorbed the Immigration and Naturalization Service and assumed its duties. In doing so, it divided the enforcement and services functions into two separate and new agencies: Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Citizenship and Immigration Services. Additionally, the border enforcement functions of the INS, the U.S. Customs Service, and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service were consolidated into a new agency under DHS: U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The Federal Protective Service falls under the National Protection and Programs Directorate.
Everybody on board with that? Everyone know where their desk is? Meanwhile, we poor boobs who just pay the bills and keep on truckin' are subjected to further intrusions into our business and personal travel lives. The rest of the world has stopped coming to America, because it's such a dehumanizing experience and it seems DHS is hell-bent on further dehumanization of the home folks who make up the homeland.
Ex-DHS director Michael Chertoff is flogging airport body scanners, at $160,000 a pop, made by a single supplier in whom he has a personal financial interest. Given that, it's likely the next al Qaeda terrorist to threaten an aircraft will have explosives up his ass--the same bodily cavity in which DHS has its mandate to protect the homeland. Possibly we'll get some decent public transport out of this whole mess, once the airlines have folded.
One can only hope, if there is still such a thing as The Audacity of Hope.