The Washington Independent

Posts Tagged underwear bomber

Analysts Question Al-Qaeda Efforts at Counterterrorism Center

By | 01.15.10 | 6:00 am

The National Counterterrorism Center is in for a brutal week. Its director, Michael Leiter, faces a battery of Capitol Hill hearings next week on what President Obama has described as a systemic intelligence failure ahead of the failed terrorist attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253. But if lawmakers look beyond More…

FBI: We Should Have Known About Abdulmutallab, but Father’s Warning Wasn’t Enough to Search Him

By | 12.31.09 | 1:49 pm

Following up on my earlier post on the FBI’s longstanding problems with putting terror suspects on its terror watchlist, I just got off the phone with FBI spokesman William Carter, who clarified a few things.

Although Carter couldn’t talk specifically about the case of the failed Northwest Airlines More…

2008 FBI Audit Flagged Failure to Place Terror Suspects on Watchlist

By | 12.31.09 | 12:06 pm

While the State Department is fending off questions about why it didn’t revoke Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s visa and points fingers at the National Counterterrorism Center, it’s worth noting that the FBI last year was told, following an in-depth audit by its inspector general, that it More…

Do Graham, McCain and Lieberman Want Obama to Take Back Yemeni Detainees?

By | 12.29.09 | 5:41 pm

Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) sent a letter to President Obama today asking him to halt the transfer of six Guantanamo detainees to Yemen. The request, they say, is in light of the danger they’ve apparently just now realized Yemen poses, because More…

Obama Acknowledges Government Screw-Up

By | 12.29.09 | 4:51 pm

President Obama just acknowledged that the government messed up in not passing along information intelligence agents had about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane on Christmas Day.

While we already knew that Abdulmutallab’s father, a retired More…