Obama updates public on safety steps government is taking after botched airline attack

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Obama discusses plans to thwart terrorist attacks

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama says the foiled Christmas Day airliner attack exposed “a potentially disastrous” security failure in which the U.S. intelligence community had enough information to connect the dots ahead of time but didn’t.

The president spoke after a White House meeting Tuesday with the high-ranking government officials charged with carrying out two reviews.

Obama told reporters the security lapse didn’t have to do with the collection of information but with the failure to integrate and analyze what was there. He said, “We have to do better and we will do better and we have to do it quickly.”

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama prepared Tuesday to update the public about steps the government is taking to keep it safe after an alleged terrorist’s failed attempt to destroy a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner on Christmas Day.

Obama met Tuesday afternoon with high-ranking government officials charged with carrying out two reviews he ordered after the botched attack — on airline passenger screening and on the U.S. terror watch-list system.

He was expected to outline his findings for the public after the 90-minute meeting.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, speaking to reporters beforehand, said Obama would provide a “candid update” on the status of the review he ordered, outline steps already taken to improve domestic security and go through some timelines for additional security announcements that may be forthcoming.

The Transportation Security Administration already directed airlines, effective Monday, to give full-body, pat-down searches to U.S.-bound travelers from Yemen, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and 11 other countries.

White House officials, while eager to portray Obama as aggressive on the issue, also sought to minimize expectations for his remarks Tuesday afternoon. He planned no major airline security announcement, officials said.

Gibbs also said the president continued to have full confidence in his three top security officials: director of national intelligence Dennis Blair, CIA Director Leon Panetta and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. They were among the 20 high-level officials who sat down with Obama in the White House Situation Room.

Gibbs declined comment on whether anyone would lose their jobs because of the incident, saying the reviews were yet to be completed.

Since the attempted attack, the government has added dozens of names to its lists of suspected terrorists and those barred from flights bound for the United States.

Obama will get updates on the investigation from FBI Director Robert Mueller, on the prosecution from Attorney General Eric Holder and on the review of terrorist detection techniques from Napolitano. Counterterrorism adviser John Brennan will update the president on his own review of the system of watch lists and outline his initial findings. Agency heads will comment on their internal reviews.

The addition of names to the government’s terrorist watch list and the no-fly list came after U.S. officials scrutinized a larger database of suspected terrorists, an intelligence official said Monday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the individual was not authorized to speak publicly.

People on the watch list are subject to additional scrutiny before they are allowed to enter this country, while anyone on the no-fly list is barred from boarding aircraft in or headed for the United States.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian who claims ties to al-Qaida, remained in federal custody, charged with trying to destroy the Northwest Airlines flight as it approached Detroit. He is alleged to have smuggled an explosive device on board the aircraft and set if off, but the device sparked only a fire and not the intended explosion.

Abdulmutallab’s name was in the U.S. database of about 550,000 suspected terrorists, but was not on a list that would have subjected him to additional security screening or kept him from boarding the flight altogether. That omission prompted a review of the National Counterterrorism Center’s massive Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) database.

Associated Press writers Joan Lowy, Philip Elliott, Matthew Lee and Faryl Ury in Washington, and Ahmed Al-Haj in San’a, Yemen, contributed to this report.

On the Net:

Transportation Security Administration: www.tsa.gov