Obama Connects al Qaeda to Jet Plot, But Fails to Connect Global Jihad

From the Wall Street Journal, "Obama Connects al Qaeda to Jet Plot":

President Barack Obama drew a direct link Saturday between an al Qaeda group and a foiled attempt to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner on Christmas Day.

In his Saturday morning radio address, Mr. Obama went further than he has in previous statements on the attack to connect the extremist group with the Dec. 25 attack. He pledged to work with officials in other nations to combat terrorism, including Yemen, where officials believe Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of trying to destroy Northwest Flight 253, was schooled in terrorist techniques.

"We know that he traveled to Yemen, a country grappling with crushing poverty and deadly insurgencies. It appears that he joined an affiliate of al Qaeda, and that this group -- Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula -- trained him, equipped him with those explosives and directed him to attack that plane headed for America," Mr. Obama said in his address, a copy of which was released by the White House. He delivered the radio address from Hawaii, where he is vacationing this week.

"This is not the first time this group has targeted us. In recent years, they have bombed Yemeni government facilities and Western hotels, restaurants and embassies -- including our embassy in 2008, killing one American. So, as president, I've made it a priority to strengthen our partnership with the Yemeni government-training and equipping their security forces, sharing intelligence and working with them to strike al Qaeda terrorists," he said.

Even before Christmas, the U.S. has been aiding Yemen battled militants and had already planned to substantially increase spending on counterterrorism operations there this year. Two missile strikes last month, before the botched attack, were aimed at leaders of the al Qaeda branch and a radical cleric U.S. officials believe is connected to the plot.

On Dec. 29, the president ordered a sweeping inquiry to determine how information in U.S. possession before the attack was not assembled into a full picture of the plot. Such a picture would have resulted in Mr. Abdulmutallab being detained for questioning before he boarded a jet with explosives concealed in his clothing, Mr. Obama has said.

The president is currently reading through hundreds of pages of reports submitted by heads of a half-dozen intelligence and other agencies in response to a Dec. 31 deadline he set for them to complete a preliminary review of their roles in the case.

On Tuesday Mr. Obama will convene agency chiefs in the White House Situation Room to discuss next steps in the investigation.

Meanwhile, Congress plans multiple hearings in what promises to be a politically-charged effort to determine who's to blame for intelligence failures.

The text of the president's address is here (via Memeorandum), but I've just listened to the video. I simply cannot believe this man. He claims he'll do "whatever it takes" to defeat our enemies, but then at 2:35 minutes he asserts that the war in Iraq " had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks." Then, at 4:22 minutes, he puffs, let us not succumb to "partisanship and division."

Yeah. Right. Mr. Take-a-Shot-at-My-Predecessor's-Foreign-Policy is urging folks to "renew that timeless American spirit of resolve and confidence and optimism."

What a f***ing joke.

No wonder Americans feel less safe under the Democrats and would be happy waterboarding our diabolical foes who want nothing less the a million 9/11s.

See also, Flopping Aces, "Obama Admin Denies Americans At War With Al Queda":

One should wonder not if Obama is defending the American people (he’s not), but rather…when Al Queda gets a good detonator and succeeds in killing Americans, what will Obama’s excuse be? He can’t blame Bush. He can’t say he was taking the threat seriously (he’s not). He can’t blame Republicans who barely have a minority in Congress. He can’t blame American imperialism as he’s practiced the opposite. So, if all those tried and true excuses and conspiracy theories of the past don’t sell….does that mean HE screwed up, and something (anything) that the Bush Admin did to prevent terror attacks was correct? That’s a question that-if answered in the affirmative, collapses the far left nutroots house of conspiracy theory lies.

Also, from Erick Erickson, "Could this actually be the greatest and potentially the deadliest of Obama’s screw ups so far?" (via Memeorandum).