Congress seeks specific fixes on intel failures in botched Christmas Day terror bombing

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Congress seeks specific fixes on intel failures

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has so far used broad strokes to describe how it will repair an intelligence system that failed to stop an attempted Christmas Day terrorist attack. This week, with Republicans newly emboldened, Congress starts pressing for specifics.

FBI Director Robert Mueller, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and other senior security officials head to Capitol Hill for two days of hearings about how purported Nigerian al-Qaida operative Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly was allowed to board a plane for Detroit armed with a bomb.

A White House report this month outlined a series of missteps, including name misspellings, ignored warnings and oversights. But for a failed detonator and the swift action of passengers, the attack might have killed all 289 people aboard.

The administration was likely to get a dressing down for its intelligence failures Wednesday. And the election Tuesday of Republican Scott Brown to a longtime-Democratic Senate seat in Massachusetts could provide the GOP with more incentive to take on the Obama administration’s national security policy. Brown, who made national security a key part of his campaign, will deprive Democrats of a key 60th vote necessary to keep Republicans from blocking their agenda.

The White House is bracing for the tougher Senate outlook.

Wednesday morning, the administration’s choice to lead the Transportation Security Administration withdrew his name, saying his nomination had become a lightning rod for those with a political agenda.

President Barack Obama tapped Erroll Southers, a former FBI agent, to lead the TSA in September but his confirmation was blocked by Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina. Republicans voiced concerns that Southers would allow TSA employees to engage in collective bargaining with the government. Questions also were raised about a reprimand Southers received for running background checks on his then-estranged wife’s boyfriend two decades ago.

Lawmakers were expected to press for a number of suggested fixes for air safety and security and to strengthen intelligence assessments of potential terror risks. Some of those proposals, like putting federal marshals on all 29,000 daily flights, would cost billions.

“If the answer is, ‘We don’t have enough money for marshals,’ well, we’ve got to have marshals,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., whose Intelligence Committee will be holding closed-door hearings Thursday. “I know a marshal when I see a marshal, and I feel good when I see a marshal. And the Farouks of the world don’t feel good when they see a marshal.”

Other fixes would cost little or nothing, like making sure the State Department temporarily suspends a U.S. visa for a person when someone raises security concerns, as Abdulmutallab’s father did a month before the flight.

“Clearly, some elements of our homeland defenses are not working as we need them to be. We need to find out what and why and fix them,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., whose Homeland Security panel was questioning Napolitano and others Wednesday. “It’s clear that information is being shared between intelligence, law enforcement and homeland security agencies, but human error was made in handling that information.”

Then there are the thorny questions surrounding personal privacy, which inevitably surface when the administration talks about making it easier to put people on terrorism watch lists or no-fly lists.

Authorities say Abdulmutallab was affiliated with an al-Qaida branch in Yemen. Intelligence officials failed to recognize the threat posed by the troubled Arab country, which had been previously regarded as a menace only to U.S. targets abroad. Now, that threat has reached U.S. borders.

The House Armed Services Committee was to question military officials about how they’re responding to that threat and whether they can do so without losing pace in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Associated Press writers Pamela Hess and Eileen Sullivan contributed to this report.