By Zhang Wen
US President Barack Obama lashed out at systemic intelligence failures Tuesday over the attempted attack on a Detroit-bound airliner, saying the government had bits of information which could have been pieced together to possibly prevent the incident.
According to AFP, the president said there had been warnings of possible Christmas holiday attacks, and information that the Nigerian would-be bomber was a threat, but the data was not properly distributed throughout the US government.
"A systemic failure has occurred and I consider that totally unacceptable," the agency quoted Obama as saying. "There was a mix of human and systemic failures that contributed to this potential catastrophic breach of security."
"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," he added.
Meanwhile, Dutch Interior Minister Guusje ter Horst said Wednesday, "The preparation of the failed attack was fairly professional ... The explosive used is not easy to make and its production is not without risk ... but its execution was amateurish."
Obama's statement showed more fire than he had shown previously about the lapses that allowed the attack to take place and came after his homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, said that "the system worked" in the incident.
Citing intelligence flaws, Obama complained that the father of would-be bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had warned US diplomats in Abuja that his son was an extremist threat – yet the man was still able to board a US jet carrying explosives.
"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 said.
Napolitano also changed her tone Wednesday, saying "The administration is determined to find and fix the vulnerabilities in our systems that allowed this breach to happen."
While still trying to find what went wrong with the system, the White House also needs to calm tension between CIA director Leon Panetta and Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.
The administration published an internal memo to assert the CIA's direct authority over secret missions abroad, but also reminds the agency to work closely with Blair, who heads the US intelligence establishment, a US intelligence official told AFP.
According to the LA Times, Blair was seeking more control over missions that include drone strikes and paramilitary operations in Pakistan.
Meanwhile, CNN reported that the US and Yemen were reviewing targets for a potential reprisal strike after a local Al Qaeda affiliate claimed responsibility for the Detroit attack attempt.
Yemen also called for support from Western countries for its war on terror.
"We need more training; we have to expand our counter-terrorism units and this means providing them with the necessary training, military equipment, ways of transportation," Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Kurbi told the BBC Tuesday, identifying a shortage of helicopters as a particular problem. "There is support, but I must say it is inadequate."
He underlined the continuing threat that the Al Qaeda presence in Yemen posed and warned the jihadists could plot further attacks like the Detroit one.
Ma Xiaojun, a professor at the Institute of International and Strategic Studies at the Central Party School of the CPC, pointed out that Yemen may therefore become the next counter-terrorism focus point.
Agencies contributed to this story