Monday, Jan. 4, 2010

It seems like we begin a new decade much the way we came out of 9/11/2001 – doubtful that extraordinary security measures of our anti-terrorism policy work as intended.

In the case of the aborted bombing of a Northwest Airlines jet which landed in Detroit from Amsterdam on Christmas Day, the government was tipped off to trouble by the suspect’s father even before a 23-year-old Nigerian man boarded.

So President Obama begins 2010 reviewing reports from various homeland security agencies which seem to never communicate with one another, no matter how much intelligence they gather.

If the hearings before Congress are shaping up as uncomfortable for intelligence officials, so be it.

“Someone’s hair should be on fire,” Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., said.

“The failure to share that information is not going to be tolerated,” a “senior administration official” told reporters traveling with the vacationing president in Hawaii and not otherwise identified because of the sensitive intelligence discussions.

The Senate Intelligence Committee announced Jan. 21 hearings.

“We will be following the intelligence down the rabbit hole to see where the breakdown occurred and how to prevent this failure in the future,” said Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo. “Somebody screwed up big time.”

Administration officials said not only is the system to protect the nation’s skies from terrorists deeply flawed, but the government failed to follow its own directives.

It takes a while just for Obama to consult with all the chiefs, including Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, National Security Council Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and John Brennan, counterterrorism adviser.

Despite all the billions of dollars poured into security and countless declarations to cooperate, only sheer dumb luck of the attacker fumbling the detonation Dec. 25 kept this communication breakdown from ending tragically.

Like George W. Bush before him, Obama is faced with trying to get this plethora of duplicitous intelligence and security agencies on the same page.