I have a different response than does my co-blogger Jim Lindgren to the recently-released White House summary of tentative findings as to how the counterterrorism community failed to detect and stop the Christmas attack. Jim is right that the government report does not give a full account, and it doesn’t give full credit to the passengers on the flight. But that’s because it’s only a report about the failings of the counterterrorism community. As I understand it, the purpose of the document is to figure out and report, just two weeks after the attack, how the counterterrorism agencies failed so they can take corrective action quickly.
From that perspective, it doesn’t matter if the attacker showed his passport in Amsterdam or who gets credit for stopping the attacker — or, for that matter, whether the attacker was stopped at all. What matters is that the counterterrorism agencies figure out how they missed this so they won’t next time. Further, I think it’s notable that the government is disclosing the report. It’s hard to imagine the Bush Administration issuing a similar report about its failings, especially just two weeks after an attack.
Eapen Thampy says:
I agree. I don’t think anyone in their sane mind could imagine Bush Administration publishing anything like this.
More generally, I’m inclined to give a lot more credit to the Administration for their efforts towards transparency than some. The government is a big, heterogenous organization that is full of bureaucrats and people motivated by political incentives; from a structural standpoint I have trouble believing that the President’s stated ideals regarding transparency and accountability aren’t meeting with large-scale structural obstructions.
January 8, 2010, 4:05 amDilan Esper says:
what professor kerr said.
January 8, 2010, 4:12 amMark N. says:
I’m afraid you missed the spirit of the law “no comments allowed on Jim Lindgren posts”, even if you’ve complied with its letter. ;-)
January 8, 2010, 6:09 amRicardo says:
On Abdulmutallab boarding the plane without showing his passport: having passed through Amsterdam on an international connecting flight, I can confirm that unlike U.S. airports you do not need to pass through passport control or customs while in transit. Or at least you didn’t back in 2004. Airport security may ask to see it at the boarding gate but I don’t know whether that is standard or not. If Abdulmutallab had been allowed to board in Nigeria without a passport, that would have been a different matter but that doesn’t seem to be the allegation.
I’m not sure what difference it makes in any case. Everyone agrees that Abdulmutallab did hold a valid Nigerian passport with a valid U.S. visa in it.
January 8, 2010, 6:27 amArkady says:
Isn’t the epistemological problem with any screening system that you only “know” it’s working right up until the time it doesn’t? Wouldn’t testing a screening system, in some “foolproof” manner, be akin to proving a negative?
January 8, 2010, 6:34 amPete Freans says:
It’s hard to imagine the Bush Administration issuing a similar report about its failings, especially just two weeks after an attack.
Of course the Administration is being transparent in this matter (as opposed to the health care bill): they are working from the premise that this is the flawed security apparatus that they inherited from the Bush Administration. I’m not so sure this argument will work if, heaven forbid, there are future attacks.
January 8, 2010, 7:09 amFederal Dog says:
Did the Bush administration refuse to issue any report after 911?
January 8, 2010, 7:11 amAdam B. says:
Well, they did oppose even the creation of a 9/11 Commission ….
January 8, 2010, 7:13 amDr. Weevil says:
Ricardo:
January 8, 2010, 7:35 amThe Bush administration gave him a visa before he turned homicidal, or at least before there was any way to know that he had turned homicidal. His second stay in Yemen and his father’s plea to the U.S. authorities both came well after Obama’s inauguration. There was in fact “no ‘derogatory information available’ on him at the time he applied”, so there was no reason to deny him a visa. His visa should have been revoked when abundant derogatory information became available to the Obama administration, which was too inept to act on it.
Anderson says:
JL: It reads like a document written by bureaucrats for bureaucrats — which presumably it is.
Well, yes: if the government is going to study its internal failing and try to correct it, then that’s going to be “a document written by bureaucrats for bureaucrats.” What should it read like? An Ann Coulter screed?
I’m disappointed with lots that Obama’s done, but this is not one of those things. A freak got through, we probably should’ve prevented it, how can we learn from it?
P.S. — ROLL TIDE!
January 8, 2010, 7:42 amjcm says:
it’s notable that the government is disclosing the report
January 8, 2010, 8:14 amWhy? its another punch in his was against intel community. He want to embarrass them instead of firing ” system worked” or the next gold medal winner in olympic ski compettition ( he must be that good since it was more important to ski than the attack)
CIA and NSA work within the frame that the law put in place .
In many european countries they have ID Cards. The privacy requirement of no birth date in the database is bogus and made them useless. That is the fault of liberal in the Congress and not of CIA
Bob Sykes says:
Over at Strata-Sphere, they think there is evidence that someone in the administration squelched the Abdulmutallab investigation.
January 8, 2010, 8:40 amGordon Langston says:
If the administration acts up front about this then people will tend to forget about Capt. Hasan, who actually succeeded in his act despite the many warning signs.
Dwelling on the more recent “failure” is easier to stomach than a dozen dead soldiers bodies. Any administration could figure that out.
January 8, 2010, 8:55 amAnderson says:
it’s notable that the government is disclosing the report
Why? its another punch in his was against intel community. He want to embarrass them
Please, please tell me that this is snark. I am disturbed that anyone could sincerely believe this.
January 8, 2010, 9:05 amOctavian says:
I’m still waiting for the report regarding the Ft. Hood shooter since our Dear Leader didn’t want Congress investigating the incident (heaven forbid).
January 8, 2010, 9:31 amInstapundit » Blog Archive » JIM LINDGREN: Ten Unanswered Questions in the Flight 253 Summary. UPDATE: A somewhat more posit… says:
[...] UPDATE: A somewhat more positive take from Orin Kerr. [...]
January 8, 2010, 9:39 amSarcastro says:
So much to learn on this thread! I mean, I knew Obama isn’t acting better than Bush on this! FOr one thing, Obama is evil and Bush is good. But Obama is being all open with this, which seems good!
Luckily for my principles, it Obama’s openness is an attack on the intelligence community. Evidence, you say? Well, Obama hates the intel community cause he hates America, who he hates cause he’s evil. I’d say he hates the CIA, but they’ve gone all liberal these days anyhow. Good thing Obama’s inept as well as evil and just accepts responsibility instead of firing people.
Of course, this openness has gotta be proof Obama is hiding something. Probably this is all a distraction from his birth certificate, or that the underwear bomber is like his brother or sometging.
Also, Obama treated the Ft. Hood attack all secret-like. This clearly means Obama is hiding something, unlike when Bush did it to stymie liberals.
Besides, Obama totally admitted he failed, unlike Bush who never admitted failure cause he never failed! I totally know Bush wouldn’t have let this guy in, cause Bush isn’t evil like Obama!
January 8, 2010, 9:50 amArthurKirkland says:
When this site switched providers, the “exclude” function (which blocked a particular author’s contributions) ceased to work, at least for me. Has anyone been able to revive that function.
Thank you.
January 8, 2010, 9:54 amEric Rasmusen says:
Obama has been shamelessly false to his promises of transparent government, so I don’t think the “Obama is more transparent than Bush” idea has much basis. One commentor suggested that Obama is out to embarass the intelligence agencies. That is not in itself implausible. The CIA waged a private war against President Bush, and it is not an obvious ally of Obama. On the other hand, their attacks on Bush showed that they are dangerous enemies, so it would be surprising for Obama to want to provoke them.
I have another hypothesis, a testable one akin to the “move attention away from Hasan” hypothesis. It is that there is worse embarassment to come, and the Administration wants to pre-empt it. By admitting to some lapses now, when even bigger lapses some to light they can say, “We already published a report on that, admitting to our faults– this is nothing new.” This strategy works especially well with a supportive press, to whom it gives a little cover to excuse them from not covering the big news of the newly uncovered lapses.
January 8, 2010, 10:17 amzuch says:
Prof. Kerr:
Or taking responsibility, instead of saying (falsely): “No one could have imagined….”
Cheers,
January 8, 2010, 10:35 ambob kagan says:
the passengers and crew did not prevent the attack. if the terrorist had not been inept, nobody could have saved the plane.
as a corollary to “to big to fail”, the Homeland Security System is too big to work. this is a bureaucratic legacy system put in place by one administration and left in place by another. until its stressed, you never know how bad it is.
and by the way, if we are “at war”, we should all acknowledge the war goes two ways and neither side is going to throw a no hitter. why are we surprised that our enemy is attacking us and will from time to time succeed no matter what we do.
January 8, 2010, 10:38 amzuch says:
and
You might have a point if you had been screaming as loudly about the Dubya maladministration’s failures back in 2001? Did you? Did you demand transparency and accountability then, instead of “executive privilege” invocations, and Cheney-Dubya handholding (not under oath)?
Not to mention, you claim that the Dubya maladministration wouldn’t have let him in … yet you produce no evidence that the Obama administration has done anything less (or different) than what Dubya was doing for seven years. How do you come to your conclusion?
Cheers,
January 8, 2010, 10:41 amRhode Island Lawyer says:
Once again, prof. Kerr gives me reason to hope that reasoned discourse has a place in the blog world. Virtually everything that Lindgren writes is spin – thank god that Kerr is willing to gently point that out in an appropriate, but pointed, way.
January 8, 2010, 10:44 amAUH2O says:
Once again, Lindgren is right and Kerr is wrong.
January 8, 2010, 10:49 amzuch says:
I vote we nominate Prof. Lindgren to head up a separate, independent investigation. He’s obviously on top of intelligency-type things, and asking questions that no one else would have thought to ask. He’ll surely get to the bottom of things and make sure responsibility is fixed appropriately. Where was he back in 2002-2003? We sorely missed his sage advice and insight….
Cheers,
January 8, 2010, 10:57 amKirk Parker says:
ArthurKirkland,
The ‘exclude’ simply isn’t provided by the new blog software, there’s nothing to revive.
January 8, 2010, 11:09 amMartinned says:
US airports make transit passengers go through passport control? I didn’t know that. The only time I ever transited in North America was in Toronto. They made us recheck our luggage, but I don’t remember if they made us go through passport control again.
AFAIK, the normal system is that once you’ve passed through customs, you’re considered checked and OK until you come out at your destination. That whole period is like the area between the two booths at the border.
I suspect that that is essentially it. The US national security apparatus is as big as it needs to be in order to do the job. (It’s a big country, and there are many ways to attack it.) Unfortunately, that means that it is necessarily also so big that miscommunications and total failures to communicate are occasionally going to happen.
January 8, 2010, 11:13 amThe Drill SGT says:
Explosives typically need both heat and shock to detonate. That is what is provided by a blasting cap. Most explosives burn rather than explode when exposed to open flame. Hence the practice in my day of cooking C-rations on top of small chunks of C-4 lit with a match :)
PETN, the chemical used in the bomb has 1.66 times the explosive power of TNT, has a rapid burn rate and is more unstable. It is used in “Det Cord” and thus likely the lack of containment was not the issue, but rather the problem lay in a malfunctioning ignition device (e.g. the blasting cap surrogate).
PETN (formed as Det Cord) coupled with a blasting cap will cut steel girders like they were butter.
we were very very lucky.
January 8, 2010, 11:17 amSyd Henderson says:
Yeah. Thanks, Orin.
January 8, 2010, 11:36 amChris Travers says:
One of the things that seems to be missing in the discussion is what worked well.
As more information has surfaced, it seems more and more likely that the bomber had support from a network of individuals including people in the Netherlands and UK. Yet the coordination and cooperation was not sufficient to create a real threat the airliner. Honestly this suggests that more things were working than not.
Are there things which could be improved? Absolutely. They include better coordination with the UK over visa denial questions, as well as possibly having airlines print the nationality of the individual on boarding passes. There is no excuse for a Nigerian to be issued a visa by our embassy in Nigeria and then go through security without his passport by pretending to be a Sudanese refugee.
But on the whole, these are minor.
January 8, 2010, 11:50 amChris Travers says:
Evidently competent explosive device testing was not something AQ was able to bring to bear this time.
January 8, 2010, 11:54 amChris Travers says:
It’s worse than that. You can only screen for things you are expecting and then not perfectly because you can assume that people are trying to find ways to break your system.
A better approach is to facilitate more discussion on HOW to circumvent airline security so that problems can be found and fixed in advance.
January 8, 2010, 11:57 amjosh says:
I appreciate this post and comment thread. Professor Lindgren has proved to be the more, shall we say, provocative posters on the site, and a full and fair discussion of his conspiracy theories is important (even though the instant post was relatively subdued for him).
January 8, 2010, 12:00 pmMark Field says:
If you fly to the US from Europe and stop anywhere in North America before your final destination, you must go through passport control and recheck your luggage. This seems not to be the case in Europe in my experience.
January 8, 2010, 12:00 pmzuch says:
We have this interesting and useful commentary by one Republican stalwart (and former presidential candidate). Furthers the discussion a bit, don’t you think?
Cheers,
January 8, 2010, 12:20 pmcraig says:
In October, Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam required me to show my passport twice, once to pass from the ticket area to the concourse (my flight originated in AMS) and a second time to pass from the concourse to the gate. Agents at the gate asked each passenger a couple of questions and then each passenger went through a metal detector as his carry-on baggage went through an X-ray scanner.
January 8, 2010, 12:21 pmbillb says:
Ricardo:
I passed through a passport control point in Amsterdam in early April of 2004 while transferring from a Northwest flight from Minneapolis to a KLM flight to Oslo. Ditto on my way back through on the return trip. I don’t know why our experiences differ.
January 8, 2010, 12:49 pmMartinned says:
Do you know why that was? I don’t recall any increased terror alert in October. (And, just to be sure, are you sure those people at the gate were customs officials, and not airline people?)
January 8, 2010, 12:50 pmDrew says:
Nearly every aspect of what should be a serious and objective very difficult debate over how best to set up our intelligence communities has been an utterly embarrassing circus sideshow. Are, for instance, body scanners a worthwhile investment? Or not? I’m leaning pretty heavily towards not, but I’m honestly still not sure.
But, thankfully, it doesn’t matter, because the level of our public debate over the issue is basically Drudge accusing Janet Nepolitano of wanting to leer at naked women. So we needn’t worry about such troubling questions such as costs/benefits, and so on.
“I’m still waiting for the report regarding the Ft. Hood shooter since our Dear Leader didn’t want Congress investigating the incident (heaven forbid).”
No offense to our great deliberative body, but can anyone point me to a Congressional Investigation of anything that was actually worth the time and effort and accomplished anything productive?
January 8, 2010, 12:52 pmMartinned says:
How about this one?
January 8, 2010, 1:06 pmptt says:
Can one be said to be “provocative” when one prevents reaction?
January 8, 2010, 1:15 pmRPT says:
Yes, this is one of the most important revelations of the last few weeks: there were no domestic terror attacks from 1.20.01 to 1.20.09. No Reid, anthrax, 9.11, et al. No one can approach that record. It’s also very Orwellian; unsuccessful attacks are worse than successful attacks.
January 8, 2010, 1:57 pmwfjag says:
It also helps to wrap Det Cord around a stick, or something similar. Of course, that might have defeated the idea of being served for eternity by 72 virgins, and so would run counter to AQ’s marketing for martyr trainees.
January 8, 2010, 2:08 pmRPT says:
WFJAG:
Good point. And call the doctor if it doesn’t explode after four hours.
January 8, 2010, 2:28 pmptt says:
Or, looking at the bright side, it ensures permanent virginity for the 72.
January 8, 2010, 2:33 pmMartinned says:
Sorry:
Quran, surah 52:19 (describing heaven):
Muslims, like (AFAIK) Christians, believe that in heaven all their ailments will be fixed. Whether that means that those born blind will suddenly be able to see is something I gladly leave for the reader to look into.
January 8, 2010, 3:30 pmleo marvin says:
It’s his devilishly clever plan to defeat terrorism. When the pent up reaction reaches critical mass he’s going to open comments and send the suicide thread to al Qaeda.
January 8, 2010, 3:43 pmLyle says:
I agree that the transparency is refreshing, but what information is out transparency teaching our enemies? Isn’t greater transparency a boon for them in a tactical way?
I think this also conveniently covers up the lack of transparency with regards to the health care debate. It is some fortunate political jujitsu on the apart of the Obama administration.
January 8, 2010, 4:06 pmwfjag says:
Actually, Martinned, I remember when it was 40 virgins. Guess that virginity, like everything else, is subject to inflation and virginity isn’t as valuable as it used to be.
Moreover, the Holy Koran doesn’t mention virgins — 40, 72 or any other number — at all. It mentions eating and drinking “in health”, and some other activities, but doesn’t refer to “getting busy.” If you read it as written, and not implying additional items you’d like to have in there, you can conclude that you’ll be relieved for eternity of organs unnecessary to the celebration of and the enjoyment of the company of Allah. That may be the drawback to wishing Inshallah without first studying the fine print.
Still, being willing to burn your balls off for God does show real dedication to the cause, and could be a catchy recruiting slogan for AQ. It’s also certain to get a Darwin Award Nomination.
January 8, 2010, 5:14 pmAllan Walstad says:
As with 9/11, the various fed intelligence and investigative squads failed to connect the dots on the information they had, and the only obvious limit (from our side) to the success of an attack was the willingness of non-official individuals to get involved. They’ve had over 8 years just to learn to talk and cooperate. Nevertheless, failure leads inexorably to more budget, more power to those who failed, along with further impositions upon the rest of us. Perhaps there’s a lesson here that we the people need to figure out and not keep missing.
January 8, 2010, 5:18 pmThe Drill SGT says:
Great Balls of Fire!!
January 8, 2010, 6:12 pmMartinned says:
I was aware of the fact that the virgins were only a myth, but I assumed every other reader of this thread would be, too. It’s just something we Westerners say by way of hyperbole. The theological disputes over how much someone is healed when they go to heaven are much more fun, of the angels-on-the-pin-of-a-needle variety.
January 8, 2010, 6:27 pmMark Field says:
DrillSgt wins the thread.
January 8, 2010, 7:14 pmcraig says:
Martinned, I don’t recall any increased terror alert in October either. I assumed this was “normal” Schiphol security. I’m not sure whether the people asking questions were airport or airline employees, but I’d guess the former. Assuming all this was typical, it makes me suspect that the undie-bomber must have been aided by an insider accomplice in AMS. And it does comport with the account (elsewhere on the internet) given by another NW253 passenger, claiming that the bomber was escorted to the gate by another man.
January 8, 2010, 9:06 pmSteverino says:
Professor Kerr, you are correct that the report is about the failings of the intelligence community. But the failings of the intelligence community can be blamed on their inability to pay attention to detail.
A report that also fails to pay attention to detail hardly leads to confidence. It simply promises more of the same kind of failure.
It isn’t that the report isn’t a full accounting; it is that it is an incorrect accounting.
It does matter if the attacker showed his passport, and who stopped him.
This ought to be apparent if the media reports about a misspelling of the attackers name led the DoS to assume he wasn’t a danger as he had no valid visa. Based upon the presumption that they had spelled his name correctly, and that there is only one way (I suppose) to transliterate an Arabic name into English.
If the report is going to mention details, then it had better get the details right.
The attitude that details don’t matter is exactly the reason that enabled this al Qaeda acolyte to get within a hair’s breadth of turning an airliner into a fire ball over detroit.
January 8, 2010, 11:55 pmRicardo says:
Are you sure this “passport control” was not airport security checking your tickets and ID before boarding? I can say quite positively that I never passed through Dutch Immigration on my trip through Amsterdam. As I said, I don’t remember whether or not Schiphol security ever asked to see my passport but I wouldn’t be surprised if this was not routine or required of them. Usually, passport checking on international flights is the responsibility of the airline that is carrying you rather than airport security. They can be fined by the destination country if you get denied entry for not carrying the required travel documents. Since airport security people would simply check to make sure you possess a passport, that it matches your face and that the name is the same as the name on the ticket, any such check will not do anything to stop a terrorist with a valid passport and visa in any case.
Martinned, as I recall the U.S. before 9/11 used to have a visa-free transit program where passengers connecting to an international destination were taken aside and routed around customs and immigration to their boarding gate. I may be wrong but I believe that program was terminated after 9/11 so now everyone deplaning on an international flight has to pass through customs and immigration the minute they step off the plane.
January 9, 2010, 1:35 amRicardo says:
It doesn’t, though. Airport security personnel at Schiphol or any other airport do not FBI or CIA databases handy that they can check each passenger’s details against and will probably not have this ability in the near future. They are not immigration officials. That responsibility of checking continues to be with the carrying airline who are supposed to check every passenger against the no-fly list.
January 9, 2010, 1:39 amRicardo says:
I think we have to use Occam’s Razor on this one. Everyone agrees that Nigeria issued a passport to Abdulmutallab and that he held a U.S. visa that was valid as of 12/25/09. For this story to be true, he would have had to lose or forget his passport while flying between Lagos and AMS and then bring in an accomplice to somehow escort him past Schiphol security who may or may not have been checking passports that day. The story simply doesn’t make any sense as Abdulmutallab would have attracted more attention to himself this way than if he had simply carried the passport with the completely valid U.S. visa that we all know was issued to him. American authorities ought to clarify whether or not he was carrying his passport at the time of his arrest.
It is a red herring since airport security officials are not intelligence agents or immigration officials. They do not have the ability to cross-check your personal details against any kind of law enforcement or intelligence database.
January 9, 2010, 2:06 ammarkm says:
Somehow I doubt that they’ll be effective at this when they are not even capable of accurately reporting the facts:
The passengers restrained Abdulmutallab, not the flight crew. This basic fact – that citizens are the last line of defense in the apparently inevitable failures of “the proper authorities” – appears to be entirely unpalatable to our rulers, whether Democrat or Republican.
January 10, 2010, 9:27 pm