For the terrorism chief of US President Barack Obama, unreleased information was not responsible for allowing a terror suspect to get onboard a US-bound airplane. Rather, the blame should be laid on system lapses and human error.
John Brennan, the assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, spoke on ‘State of the Union’ on CNN and emphasized the difference between the failed Christmas Day terror plot and the 11 September 2001 attack.
“It’s not like 9/11″, he said, stating that the “system didn’t work as it should have” because of “lapses” and “human error”.
“There wasn’t an effort to try to conceal information”, said Brennan.
“There is no smoking gun piece of intelligence out there”, he added, referring to the failed bombing of an airplane by a Nigerian who stored an explosive device in his underwear.
The Transportation Security Administration, meanwhile, said international and domestic air carriers will be implementing new security protocols that will take effect on Monday for flights headed to the United States.
US authorities had been warned by the suspect’s father about his son’s involvement with Islamic extremists, but for Brennan, “bits and pieces” of information such as these had not been pieced together to track the suspect. Former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean said the US intelligence network already had the information, but failed to analyse and share it.
With the new security protocol, an individual heading to the United States and “travelling from or through nations that are state sponsors of terrorism or other countries of interest will be required to go through enhanced screening”, the TSA said in a statement.
