Thread: Napolitano: “The system workedâ€

FIRE NAPOLITANO!!!!

Originally Posted by NoBueno

Originally Posted by azwreath

I just love on the tape where she says:

1.) No evidence that this was part of a bigger plot and

2.) They will go back and review how people are placed on the no fly list.......at the request of obama.


No part of a bigger plot huh? Jihad IS a bigger plot you freaking idiot.

And tell me again why we are acting at obama's request? Shouldn't DHS have been on that like....ummmm......right away? Independently of obama's input? Or maybe his *input* was required since we're so busy tip-toeing around, and kowtowing to, islam these days?


Yep....I'm in agreement with calling and pushing for her resignation or dismissal. While she's at it, she can take that boss of hers with her.

Regardless of politics, the woman simply has no business acting in the capacity of heading up DHS. She's an attorney for God's sake, with absolutely no experience whatsoever in actual, hands on, day to day law enforcement operations and activities. She never should have been offered that job, let alone accepted it realizing that it was beyond her scope of expertise, and she needs to leave it.

Ditto AZW! As governor of Arizona, this woman could not even keep Arizona's border secured. I suspect that's exactly why she was nominated to head DHS, because obama has no desire to secure our borders and what a perfect person to carry out that objective - a demonstrated failure and @$$ kisser to la raza and every other OBL.

If I didn't know better NB, I'd swear you lived here during her terror....Errr, I mean, term......as governor. You've hit that nail exactly on the head.....rock on

Air terrorism attempt reveals bigger 'system' failure



By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano's initial assessment of the Christmas Day airliner attack -- that "the system worked" -- doesn't quite match the absurdity of "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." But only because she quickly took it back.

This Story

A 'system' dangerously off course
A system that allows a man identified to U.S. officials as a potential threat -- by his own concerned father -- to board a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit with powerful explosives sewn into his underwear? That lets this man detonate his bomb as the plane prepares to land, igniting a potentially catastrophic fire? That depends on a young, athletic passenger to be seated nearby? That counts on this accidental hero to react quickly enough to thwart the terrorist's plans?

If that's how the system works, we need a new system.

Don't misunderstand. I'm not blaming the Obama administration for Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's alleged terrorist attack, and it would be reprehensible for anyone to try to use the incident to score political points. The White House is guilty only of defensiveness in not immediately recognizing the obvious: We have a problem. Actually, we have two problems.

The first is that the incident reveals serious deficiencies in the "system" that Napolitano and others were so quick to defend. At this point, no one can doubt that civilian aviation remains a major target of al-Qaeda, affiliated groups and imitators. Most of us are under the impression that removing our shoes at the airport and limiting ourselves to those tiny, trial-size containers of toothpaste, shaving cream and lotion are enough to ensure a safe flight. For passengers on Northwest Flight 253, this was not the case.


One solution -- expensive and intrusive, but effective -- would be to make use of new airport screening technology mandatory. Either a "whole-body imaging" scanner, which gives a much more detailed picture than a regular metal detector, or a "sniffer" machine, which analyzes trace chemicals, would have been likely to detect the explosives that Abdulmutallab allegedly was carrying.

In this instance, however, the system seems to have malfunctioned well before Abdulmutallab reached Amsterdam's Schiphol airport. Abdulmutallab's father, wealthy Nigerian banker Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, had warned U.S. and Nigerian authorities about his son's increasing radicalization -- information that led U.S. officials to put Abdulmutallab's name in a database, along with 550,000 other names, but not to revoke his multiple-entry visa or keep him off a Detroit-bound jetliner.

It is an ordeal for anyone from the developing world to obtain a visa to enter the United States. We already turn away multitudes. It will be no small task, but the system needs to be re-engineered to let the right people in and keep the dangerous people out.

When Abdulmutallab allegedly set his lap on fire, there were no air marshals on board to handle the situation. I realize it is not possible to provide an armed federal escort for every flight. But whatever algorithm officials use to determine which flights get marshals evidently needs improvement.

The second problem we face is much bigger, and there is no real solution in sight.

According to reports of Abdulmutallab's statements to authorities after his arrest, he claims to have gotten the bomb -- and instruction on how and when to use it -- from al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen. As noted previously in this space, and illustrated by a sobering report Monday in The Post, Yemen features prominently in al-Qaeda's expansion plans. Abdulmutallab's story suggests that an infrastructure for indoctrination, training and bomb-making is already in place, and that this ambitious young branch of al-Qaeda is confident enough to launch an attack on what the George W. Bush administration infelicitously called the "homeland."

Our enemy apparently sees its future in places such as Yemen -- or perhaps Somalia, a failed state for almost two decades, where militant fundamentalist Islam is on the march. The enemy's leadership is believed to be ensconced in remote areas of Pakistan, beyond the government's reach. Yet the United States will soon have about 100,000 troops chasing shadows in Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda's presence is now minimal.

I understand and appreciate the fear that if the Taliban were to take power again, it could invite al-Qaeda back into Afghanistan to set up shop. But I can't escape the uneasy feeling that we're fighting, and escalating, the last war -- while the enemy fights the next one.

The writer will be online to chat with readers at 1 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday. Submit your questions and comments before or during the discussion.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01337.html

A Times Editorial

An ominous security failure

In Print: Tuesday, December 29, 2009

It is a miracle no one was killed Christmas Day when authorities say a Nigerian student attempted but failed to blow up an overseas flight as it landed in Detroit. The potential disaster, narrowly averted, grew more ominous Monday when Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility as retaliation for U.S. airstrikes in Yemen. The episode revealed an aviation security system that failed miserably, both here and abroad. American taxpayers have spent billions of dollars, and the flying public inconvenienced for years, for a safety net that eight years after 9/11 should be enough to keep red flags like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from freely boarding a commercial aircraft.

Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to detonate an explosive device as the Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam prepared to land Friday. Authorities said the detonator failed, causing the device to smoke and spark, and credited fast-thinking crew and passengers for extinguishing the fire and subduing the suspect. Abdulmutallab was charged in federal court with attempting to detonate a two-part device containing the high explosive PETN. Authorities believe the malfunction saved the lives of all 278 on the plane.

The first question to answer is why Abdulmutallab was aboard. His father, a prominent Nigerian banker and former government official, had alerted Nigerian and American authorities that his son had developed radical views and had gone missing. His father had also sought foreign security services for help in finding his son and returning him home. The plea landed Abdulmutallab on a low-level watch list, but the United States did not revoke his visa or ban him from flights.

Given his father's standing and the detail and seriousness of his concerns, Washington should have placed Abdulmutallab on a no-fly list and suspended his visa, at least until authorities located and interviewed him. The British government rejected Abdulmutallab's visa application in May after finding he planned to attend a nonaccredited school. That automatically put him on a U.K. watch list. Britain's home secretary said U.S. authorities should have been informed. Yet the United States went no further than to add Abdulmutallab to the half-million names on a low-level watch list, and to mark him for a fuller investigation were he to ever reapply for a visa.

The United States needs to revamp its watch lists. If Abdulmutallab did not merit scrutiny, even after his father sought out U.S. diplomatic assistance, what does that say about the intelligence on tens if not hundreds of thousands of others on U.S. databases? Then there is the communication and coordination between various countries' security services. Abdulmutallab flew from Lagos to Amsterdam to Detroit, paying for his ticket in cash and flying without checked luggage. These should have been red flags for any security service, let alone those already alerted to Abdulmutallab as a potential threat.

Janet Napolitano has a lot to learn about her job as secretary of homeland security if her first reaction, as she expressed it Sunday, was that the incident proved the nation's aviation security system works. Napolitano was right to reverse that ridiculous claim Monday, and she needs to keep an open mind in carrying out President Barack Obama's order for a top-down look at security policies. A flying public browbeaten from taking mouthwash into the passenger cabin should at least have the confidence that a seatmate is not concealing a chemical bomb — whether the flight originated at home or overseas.

Terrorists will continue targeting commercial carriers so long as holes exist in the safety net. As the Christmas Day scare shows, the nation has work to do, and it needs to vastly improve its working relationship with countries across the globe.

http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editori ... re/1061706