There have been 32 terror-related incidents on US shores since 9/11, and 12 of those occurred in 2009.
Christmas Day 2009 a failed detonator saved the passengers on Northwest flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit.
Sunday morning Obama’s Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on “This Week” stated that “everything went according to clockwork” in how passengers, crew and the government reacted to the attempted bombing of Flight 253.
Napolitano: “The system worked”
DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said that the thwarting of the attempt to blow up the Amsterdam-Detroit flight this week demonstrated that “the system worked.”
Jake Tapper’s questioning of Napolitano-—
Jake keeps asking the right questions and Napolitano keeps handing him a crap sandwich.
‘This Week’ Transcript: Napolitano
Transcript of “This Week” interview with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
NAPOLITANO: Well, I think, first of all, we are investigating, as always, going backwards to see what happened and when, who knew what and when. But here — I think it’s important for the public to know, there are different types of databases.
And there were simply, throughout the law enforcement community, never information that would put this individual on a no-fly list or a selectee list. So that’s number one.
Number two, I think the important thing to recognize here is that once this incident occurred, everything happened that should have. The passengers reacted correctly, the crew reacted correctly, within an hour to 90 minutes, all 128 flights in the air had been notified. And those flights already had taken mitigation measures on the off-chance that there was somebody else also flying with some sort of destructive intent.
So the system has worked really very, very smoothly over the course of the past several days.
TAPPER: Well, let me ask you a question about intelligence-sharing. When the suspect’s father went to the U.S. embassy in Nigeria and said, I’m worried because my son is displaying extremist religious views, how was that information shared with other parts of the U.S. government, or did it just stay at that U.S. embassy?
NAPOLITANO: Well, again, we are going to go back and really do a minute-by-minute, day-by-day scrub of that sort of thing. But when he presented himself to fly, he was on a tide (ph) list. What a tide list simply says is, his name had come up somewhere somehow.
NAPOLITANO: The no-fly and selectee list require that there be specific, what we call, derogatory information. And that was not available throughout the law enforcement community. He went through screening in Amsterdam as he prepared to board a flight to the United States.
The authorities in Amsterdam are working with us to make sure that screening was properly done. We have no suggestion that it wasn’t, but we’re actually going through — going backwards, tracing his route.
But I think important for the traveling public recognize that A, everybody reacted as they should. We trained for this. We planned for this. We exercised for this sort of event should it occur.
So don’t think somebody at TSA is not on the job if they’re not doing exactly at one airport what you saw at another. There will be different things done in different places.
TAPPER: But, Secretary Napolitano, you keep saying everybody acted the way they were supposed to. Clearly the passengers and the crew of that Northwest Airlines flight did. But I think there are questions about whether everybody in the U.S. government did.
And here’s a question for you, how many of — so many of us are subject to random security searches all the time, how come somebody who is not on a terrorist database isn’t subject to more stringent security when they check in to a flight to the U.S.? Why does that automatically just happen?
NAPOLITANO: Well, if he had had specific information that would have put him on the selectee list or indeed on the no-fly list, he would not have actually gotten on a plane.
But those numbers pyramid down. And they need to, because again, there is lots of information that flies about this world on a lot of different people. And what we have to do in law enforcement is not only collect and share, but do it in the proper way.
Now once this incident occurred, everything went according to clockwork. Not only sharing throughout the air industry, but also sharing with state and local law enforcement, products were going out on Christmas Day, they went out yesterday, and also to the industry to make sure that the traveling public remains safe. .
And I would leave you with that message, the traveling public is safe. We have instituted some additional screening and security measures in light of this incident. But again, everybody reacted as they should, the system — once the incident occurred, the system worked.
TAPPER: What can you tell us about the suspect? Has a definitive connection with Al Qaida been established yet?
NAPOLITANO: That is now the subject of investigation. And it would be inappropriate for me to say and inappropriate to speculate. So we’ll let the FBI and the criminal justice system now do their work.
TAPPER: OK. One final question for you, Madam Secretary: An October report from the Government Accountability Office says that almost $800 million has been spent on new screening technologies by the Transportation Security Administration since 2002, but, quote, “since TSA’s creation, 10 passenger screening technologies have been in various phases of research, development, test and evaluation, procurement and deployment, but TSA had not deployed any of these technologies to airports nationwide.”
More than eight years after 9/11, an incident obviously involving airplanes, why have these technologies not been deployed to airports nationwide?
NAPOLITANO: Well, without going into the accuracy or inaccuracy of that particular report, new technology has been deployed, but there is a more important point to be made, which is that, A, technology is evolving all the time, it’s not a static situation.
And B, even with the most sophisticated technology, everybody needs to play a part in their security. That’s why I think the actions of the passengers and the crew on this flight deserve praise. That’s why the men and women who have been working really overtime Christmas Day, yesterday, whatever, to make sure that all other flights remain safe, why that system is so important.
Asked by CNN’s Candy Crowley on “State of the Union” how that could be possible when the young Nigerian who sought to set off the bomb was able to smuggle explosive liquid onto the flight, Napolitano responded: “We’re asking the same questions.”
Napolitano added that there was “no suggestion that [the bomber] was improperly screened.”
Wild Thing’s comment………..
First I am shocked that a CNN reporter actually dared to ask a Democrat a tough question.LOL Well hell has not frowzen over yet but this was a good question for sure.
So what is the system? Have we been installing a Dutch tourist on each flight? This stupid woman, Janet Napolitano !…it “worked” only because PASSENGERS defended themselves.
If she defines the system as one where terrorists are allowed to smuggle then detonate explosive devices aboard airplanes, then by all accounts she’s right. Amazing.
Napolitano: Incompetent or Evil or both = Dangerous!
Liberalism leads to pathological lying, that much is obvious.
I swear these people WANT something to happen!!
….Thank you Jack for sending this to me.
Army Combat Engineers
67-69
Jack’s blog is Conservative Insurgent
Everything went like clockwork after the fact. How stupid can this woman be? My gosh, listen to her, she’s dumber than a box of rocks. How the heck did she ever become Governor or Arizona?
This woman is a full fledged complete idiot. Everything worked as it should have ? This is what they trained for ? …and that is the detonator doesn’t work ? This is what they are training for. I don’t think she has a clue about what happened.
Then that says if the detonator works all bets are off.
Jeesh I feel so much safer now. Knowing this nitwit is in charge.
It took 90 minutes to notify the other planes in the Air that there was a problem, why so much time ?
Her leather jacket looks really spiffy, all she needs is a mask and whip.
This is what our National Security has devolved to. Incompetence.
BobF., she really is, and Obama probably
will never fire her.grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr and
she sould be kicked out of her job and out
of our government.
Mark, LOL gosh that was good.
“Her leather jacket looks really spiffy, all she needs is a mask and whip.”