Christmas Day, on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, a 23 year-old Nigerian man named Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab attempted to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 by igniting a chemical explosive. The explosive, PETN, is a highly explosive organic compound. It is being reported that this incident may have been a test to determine whether or not the compound could make it through screening and onto aircrafts.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano spent the Sunday after Christmas making the rounds on the Sunday network talk shows talking about the attempted airline bombing on Christmas Day. She commented on the security system in place stating, “One thing I’d like to point out is that the system worked. Everybody played an important role here, the passengers and crew of the flight took appropriate action.”
Watch the following clip as Secretary Napolitano comments on the events and the reactions of the two CNN reporters:
Less than 24 hours later, Secretary Napolitano was back on the network circuit trying to do damage control. The fallout from Sunday’s interviews must have been great, because here is a sampling of her Monday morning backtracks:
The question is, how did Abdulmutallab actually get on that plane?
First, Abdulmutallab is on a terror watch list maintained by the United States. He was placed on the list when the man’s father, Alhaji Umar Abdul Mutallab, reported to the United States Embassy in Nigeria that his son had gone missing and had turned to extremism. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press that the father’s information had been passed along to State, Justice, and Homeland Security departments. The watch list upon which Abdulmutallab’s name was placed contains approximately 550,000 names. The list does not prevent people from flying into the United States, instead it is a database that will match known information to future information as new intelligence is gathered. According to the New York Times:
A law enforcement official said it was not unusual that a one-time comment from a relative would not place a person on the far smaller no-fly list, which has only 4,000 names, or the so-called selectee list of 14,000 names of people who are subjected to more thorough searches at checkpoints.
It is certainly understandable that a one-time comment from a relative would not be enough to bar someone from flying into the United States. Alhaji Umar Abdul Mutallab, however, is not just any relative. He recently retired as Chairman of the First Bank Plc of Nigeria and in the past had served as the Nigerian Minister of Economic Development and Reconstruction. One would like to believe that a warning coming from a former government official regarding his son may be taken seriously.
Northwest Flight 253, a plane with Delta markings, in Detroit after the Christmas Day attempted bombing.
Second, Abdulmutallab was not permitted to fly to the UK. Home Secretary Alan Johnson told the BBC that Abdulmutallab was placed on a UK watch-list when he applied for a visa to study at a bogus college. While there are different watch-list categories, Secretary Johnson explained that people in the category which Mr Abdulmutallab is in cannot come into the UK. One has to question why someone on a U.S. watch-list is permitted to travel to the United States, while the U.K. will not allow the same person to travel within its borders?
Finally, and if true most disturbing, it is now being reported that Abdulmutallab may not have even had a passport. Still under investigation is a report that an American lawyer witnessed Abdulmutallab, with the aid of a “sharp-dressed man,” attempted to board the flight without a passport. The lawyer, Kurt Haskell of Newport, Michigan, states that the well dressed gentleman told a ticket agent that the poorly dressed Abdulmutallab was from Sudan and didn’t have a passport. He allegedly asked the agent if Abdulmutallab could board the plane anyway, stating that they “do this all the time.” Mr. Haskell says that the agent referred the two men to her manager and that he didn’t see Abdulmutallab again until the incident on the plane.
By the way, even if Abdulmutallab had a passport, he did pay cash for the ticket and checked no luggage. Between the watch-list, paying cash, not having luggage, and flying internationally to the United States, shouldn’t someone in Homeland Security have been able to connect some or all of these facts to keep him from boarding that plane?
Homeland Security is difficult. I have witnessed people getting annoyed with the inconvenience of screening that now occurs in airports. I have heard the grumbling of people being told to remove their shoes. There are people in the public complaining about privacy issues regarding the new body image technology now available for airports. That being said, it is highly inappropriate for our Secretary of Homeland Security to appear on television telling the world that our security system works because passengers on a plane were able to thwart what could have been a deadly disaster. The system is flawed, Secretary Napolitano knows it, we know it, and the terrorists know it. Forget the cover-up, then the damage control to which it inevitably leads, just admit mistakes were made and do your best to fix them!
By the way, sit back and enjoy your next flight, Homeland Security has you covered.
