Print ItemCommentary on McClatchy, 13 Jan 2010
“Let’s not become our own worst enemy,” Mark Lowenthal, McClatchy (1/15/2010)
Everyone should take a deep breath and stop flapping about the “failure” to identify Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as a likely terrorist. What went wrong — and what’s gone right?
Yes, there were disparate pieces of information that — if they were put together correctly and on time — might have sounded an alarm about Abdulmutallab before he got on Northwest Flight 253 in Amsterdam. Were they, however, of sufficient magnitude to force agencies to focus on him? One of the many misconceptions swirling around this incident is the nature of intelligence analysis, and especially analysis about potential terrorists.
