White House: We Had The Information, But The System Failed

The White House has released its report on the Christmas attack, along with President Obama's orders to U.S. counterterrorism and intelligence agencies, which they will be responsible for implementing. The overall message: U.S. agencies had all the pieces of information they needed, but a "systemic failure" occurred. It wasn't an individual human error, so no one will automatically be fired, but President Obama will hold each agency accountable for implementing reforms to ensure that information is correlated, again, with greater accountability.


It was "not the failure of a single individual or organization, but a systemic failure," President Obama said, taking personal responsibility: "[U]ltimately, the buck stops with me. As president, I have a solemn responsibility to protect our nation and our people, and, when the system fails, it is my responsibility."

The problem seems to be that information about Abdulmutallab wasn't cross-checked. According to the review document and John Brennan, who briefed reporters after the president spoke, the U.S. knew that 1) Abdulmutallab had been radicalized, as it was warned by his father, that 2) al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) was planning attacks on Americans in Yemen AND in the U.S., and 3) AQAP was involved with a Nigerian, now believed to be Abdulmutallab. But, as information was received by analysts at the National Counterterrorism Center and the CIA, it wasn't cross-check with Abdulmutallab's name for other information, available in a database, which meant he didn't get put on the watch-list. The review suggests information technology was part of the problem.