(CNN) -- President Obama said Tuesday that a "mix of human and systemic failure" allowed a terror suspect to board a U.S. airliner in the botched bombing attempt on Christmas Day.
In a brief statement during his vacation in Hawaii, Obama said that information on the suspect, Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, should have been sufficient to alert authorities to prevent him from getting on the Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam, Netherlands, to Detroit, Michigan.
"A systemic failure has occurred, and I consider that totally unacceptable," Obama said.
"What already is apparent is that there was a mix of human and systemic failures that contributed to this potential catastrophic breach of security," he said. "We need to learn from this episode and act quickly to fix the flaws in our system, because our security is at stake, and lives are at stake."
Federal authorities have charged AbdulMutallab, 23, of Nigeria, with trying to detonate explosives hidden in his underwear as the flight made its final approach. The device failed to fully detonate, instead setting off a fire at his seat.
Obama said courageous actions by other passengers and crew members helped avert a disaster, and he repeated a series of steps originally announced Monday as a response to the incident, including reviews of passenger screening procedures and terrorism watch lists for air travel.
However, the president said U.S. intelligence officials had received information signaling that the suspect might be a terrorism threat but failed to take steps to prevent the man from boarding the flight.
"It's been widely reported that the father of the suspect in the Christmas incident warned U.S. officials in Africa about his son's extremist views," Obama said. "It now appears that weeks ago, this information was passed to a component of our intelligence community but was not effectively distributed so as to get the suspect's name on a no-fly list."
Obama cited "other deficiencies," saying "there were bits of information available within the intelligence community that could have and should have been pieced together."
The screening system implemented after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States was "not sufficiently up to date to take full advantage of the information we collect and knowledge we have," he said.
"Had this critical information been shared, it could have been compiled with other intelligence, and a fuller, clearer picture of the suspect would have emerged," Obama said. "The warning signs would have triggered red flags, and the suspect would have never been allowed to board that plane for America."
He praised the dedication and professionalism of U.S. intelligence services, crediting them with saving the lives of Americans every day. But he added that the inability to take proper action on "information on a known extremist" showed the system had failed.
"As president, I will do everything in my power to support the men and women in intelligence, law enforcement and homeland security to make sure they've got the tools and resources they need to keep America safe, but it's also my job to ensure that our intelligence, law enforcement and homeland security systems and the people in them are working effectively and held accountable," Obama said. "I intend to fulfill that responsibility and insist on accountability at every level."
Find this article at:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/29/airline.terror.obama/index.html
