A Tale of Two Times: Divergent Takes on Flight 253 Terror Attempt

I simply don't trust mainstream media outlets these days. Often when citing articles from the "legacy" press, I'll note a quick disclaimer to indicate bias, ommission, etc. On top of that, I rarely read the newspaper editorials any more, with the exception of the Wall Street Journal (which has by far the most rigorous op-ed page in the country). I did happen to read two recent editorials at the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times on the attempted terror attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253. I'm not making too big a deal here, but since NYT is getting some play at Memeorandum, I'll make a comparison for readers.

Note first the editorial at the New York Times, "Why Didn’t They See It?" I was especially intrigued by the very first couple of paragraphs:

It will take some time before all the facts about the Christmas Day terrorism plot are known and analyzed. One thing is already clear: The government has to urgently improve its ability to use the reams of intelligence it receives every day on suspected terrorists and plots. That was supposed to have been addressed after the infamous “failure to connect the dots” before the 9/11 attacks. The echoes of the earlier disaster in this near-disaster are chilling.

There were plenty of clues about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man accused of trying to blow a hole in the side of Northwest Flight 253. But no one in the vast (and vastly expensive) intelligence and homeland security bureaucracy put them together.

The remainder of the editorial is less unsure about the causes of the security failure. And in fact by the end of the piece it's pretty much the case that NYT's editors have enough "facts" right now to know almost exactly what happened on Christmas Day and what needs to be done. As we see just a few paragraphs later:

Following the recommendations of the 9/11 commission, Congress created the National Counterterrorism Center to unify the government’s data collection and ordered the welter of intelligence agencies to put aside their rivalries and share what they know and suspect. Everyone insists that is happening; but still something went terribly wrong.

According to The Times, a preliminary review ordered by President Obama has found that because of human error, the agencies were still looking at discrete pieces of the puzzle without adequately checking other available databases — and, in some cases, were not sharing what they knew. The State Department says that it relayed the father’s warnings to the National Counterterrorism Center. C.I.A. officials in Nigeria prepared a separate report on Mr. Abdulmutallab that was sent to the C.I.A. headquarters but not to other agencies. At this point, we don’t know who was told of the N.S.A. intercepts.

Because editorials are so influential (especially this newspaper's), the take at NYT plays perfectly into the meme that the administration bears little culpability for the massive security breach, and that it'll take some kind of big blue ribbon panel, on top of a host of congressional committees, to get to the bottom of things (at the lowest levels of bureaucratic organization, naturally). But of course we know now that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has long been known to intelligence agencies and foreign ministries. The young would-be bomber was placed on U.S. government "watch lists" (but not "no fly lists"). And his father warned the U.S. consulate in Nigeria that his son had been "radicalized" and warned of plans for a strike on the U.S. Plus, the British government, long considered our closest ally in the war on terror, had denied Umar Farouk a passport entry visa this year, which some have argued may well have thwarted another al Qaeda attack in Britain.

These puzzle pieces emerged within days of the Christmas bombing attempt. And more information keeps coming. See for example, Hot Air, "Newsweek: Saudis briefed top Obama official about “underwear bombers” in October; Update: MI5 knew of bomber three years ago," Stormbringer, "THE SYSTEM DIDN'T FAIL . . .," and Times of London, "MI5 knew of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's UK extremist links," via Memeorandum.

Contrast the New York Times to the Los Angeles Times, and its editorial, "Screening for terrorists: A Christmas Day incident shows that human error remains the key element." Note right away that this piece came out on December 29, just days after the bombing attempt (whereas this particular New York Times' editorial, also focusing on causes, was published today). Plus there's little ambiguity to LAT's take, as evidenced by the "human element" at the title of the editorial. This factor, not the breakdown in TSA screening procedures, is the key variable under consideration at the Times:

It was only thanks to chance or ineptness that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab failed to quickly detonate a plastic explosive and destroy a Detroit-bound Northwest airliner and the 290 people it was carrying. Abdulmutallab, a recent resident of Britain who says he received training in Yemen, wasn't on a no-fly or watch list and was spared a pat-down search that could have revealed that he was carrying a weapon. Had his name been flagged, more attention might have been paid to the fact that he paid cash for his ticket and checked no baggage.

Actually, Abdulmutallab's mission could have been aborted even earlier. When he purchased his ticket from Lagos to Amsterdam on Dec. 16, a Nigerian official said, his passport and U.S. visa were scanned and his name was checked against a watch list. Despite his father's intervention, Abdulmutallab's name hadn't been added to either a 3,400-name no-fly list or a 14,000-name roster of persons who could be subjected to intensive searches. His name was added to a 555,000-name list of persons considered suspicious but less of a threat. Apparently he would have received greater scrutiny if he applied for another visa. The problem was that he already had one.

This sorry sequence of events recalls nothing so much as the failure of intelligence officials to correlate available data about the plotters of the 9/11 attacks. In both cases the problem wasn't a lack of information but an inability to sift through copious data. But some needles in a haystack are more conspicuous than others. On Monday, President Obama announced a review of the way names are added to watch lists. The answer isn't to load the lists with more names. What is required, at every stage of the process, is alertness to particularly suggestive details -- and, lest abuses occur, periodic reevaluation of names added in the past.

Some experts suggest that this incident demonstrates the need for vastly expanded use of high-technology screening devices. Before Congress accepts that counsel, however, it needs to focus on something that seemingly eluded officials in this case: the human factor.

In any case, relatedly, Jennifer Rubin has a larger analysis of the adminstration's deer-in-the-headlights response to Flight 253, "No Mystery":

As this Politico story notes, the Christmas Day bombing plot has shaken the Obama administration and his supporters, leaving the latter flummoxed. They can’t seem to understand the president’s clueless reaction, which verged on peevish resentment over the interruption to his vacation:

Over the course of five days, Obama’s reaction ranged from low-keyed to reassuring to, finally, a vow to find out what went wrong. The episode was a baffling, unforced error in presidential symbolism, hardly a small part of the presidency, and the moment at which yet another of the old political maxims that Obama had sought to transcend – the Democrats’ vulnerability on national security – reasserted itself.

What is remarkable is that there seems to be some mystery as to why Obama behaved as he did:

Explanations of Obama’s low-key reaction in the face of a terror attack include the characteristic caution of a president who resists jumping to conclusions and being pushed to action. They also include the White House’s belief – disproven repeatedly in 2009 – that it can evade the clichéd rules of politics, which include a suspicion of Democratic leadership on national security. Only Sunday night, when criticism of the system “worked” comment was not going away, did White House aides realize their approach was not working and that they needed to shift course.

Listen, it’s not all that complicated. The Obami don’t believe in their heart of hearts that we are on a war footing. The president wouldn’t label Fort Hood, where thirteen died, as an act of jihadist terror. His administration has systematically worked to denigrate the sense of urgency that the Bush administration displayed and to propound policies that treat these instances as discrete, ho-hum, and unexceptional. The Bush administration was scorned for reacting with a sense of alarm or out of fear following a terrorist attack — one which killed 3,000. Not the Obami. They told us they’re above all that and have an entirely new approach.

Arrest him, book him, Mirandize him, call the FBI — what’s the big deal? It is not a mystery at all as to why Obama behaved as he did. This is his anti-terror policy on full display. What we now see (and what the “shocked, shocked to see there is cluelessness” crowd is reacting to) is what that bizarre stance toward the war on terror looks like up close and in real time when played out in the context of actual events. Think it’s odd for the president to call Farouk Abdulmutallab a “suspect”? Think it’s weird that the terrorist isn’t being interrogated but has lawyered up? Well, that’s the Obama anti-terror policy. It isn’t supposed to be a big deal when these events occur. For if it were, we wouldn’t be treating the terrorists like criminal suspects ...

As always, more at Memeorandum.