KUER Local News
(2009-12-27)
Undated photograph of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
President Barack Obama's aides are pondering how the government is using terror watch lists after the botched airliner attack in Detroit on Christmas Day.
Obama's national security and policy advisers are asking questions such as: How is the intelligence community integrating itself? Did the assumptions used to make terror watch list choices lead to the correct decisions? Were the right criteria used to reach conclusions?
Such internal questions among Obama's team marked the informal start to what would likely become a formal executive branch inquiry into an attack that failed not because of the intelligence community but because, it appears, the suspect's material failed to ignite.
The officials described the early discussions Saturday on the condition of anonymity so as not to pre-empt possible official announcements that could come as early as Sunday and to discuss sensitive materials.
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