The short answer is, well, No.
Was Obama briefed on a possibly attack? Yes.
From Newsweek:
President Barack Obama received a high-level briefing only three days before Christmas about possible holiday-period terrorist threats against the US, Newsweek has learned. The briefing was centered on a written report, produced by US intelligence agencies, entitled “Key Homeland Threats”, a senior US official said.
The senior Administration official, who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information, said that nowhere in this document was there any mention of Yemen, whose Al-Qaeda affiliate is now believed to have been behind the unsuccessful Christmas Day attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to bring down a transatlantic airliner with a bomb hidden in his underpants. However, the official declined to disclose any other information about the substance of the briefing, including what kind of specific warnings, if any, the President was given about possibly holiday attacks and whether Yemen came up during oral discussions.
According to the senior official, the holiday threat briefing, one in a series of regularly-scheduled sessions with top counter-terrorism officials, was held in the White House Situation Room on December 22. Present were representatives of agencies involved in counter-terrorism policy and operations, including Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and FBI Director Robert Mueller. The CIA and National Intelligence Directors Office were represented by deputy agency heads: CIA deputy director Steven Kappes, and David Gompert, the principal deputy to National Intelligence Czar Dennis Blair. Also present was Michael Leiter, director of the National Counter-terrorism Center, a unit of the Intelligence Czar’s office which was created after 9/11 to ensure that intelligence reporting about possible terrorist plots was shared quickly among all US agencies who might have some capability to do something about it.
The senior official said that beginning in early December, based on reports coming in from intelligence agencies, policy-makers had begun tracking a stream of information which alluded to a possible holiday-period plot against the US orchestrated from somewhere in Pakistan. However, the official said, this reporting later turned out to be “garbled” and it was determined that the threat probably was a washout. The official denied that the White House received any report, representing the concensus of US intelligence agencies, warning that a Holiday-period plot originating in Yemen and targeting the US homeland could be in the works.
In a background briefing for reporters on December 29, also attributed in an official White House transcript to a “senior administration official”, that official asserted that in the wake of the attempted underpants attack, it had become clear to the President and top advisers that before Christmas, the US government was in posession of “bits and pieces” of information, which, if they had been properly knitted together, “could have…allowed us to disrupt the attack or certainly to know much more about the alleged attacker in such a way as to ensure that he was on, as the President suggested in his statement, a no-fly list.” In the briefing, the official identified three rough categories of information that the government had which could have been relevant to foiling the attack: information about Abdulmutallab and his plans, info about Al-Qaeda and their plans, and info “about potential attacks during the holiday period.”
Asked about what kind of intelligence reporting was circulated to senior officials about possibly holiday period attacks before the failed underpants attack, a US intelligence official, who also asked for anonymity, explained: “As everybody knows, terrorists often speak in coded language, especially when they think their communications might be intercepted. There was no clear discussion of an attack, on Christmas or any other time, in the Middle East or anywhere else. But as veiled as the message was, it was spotted, processed, analyzed, and presented to senior policymakers as a warning sign-however vague-of a holiday attack. While this was handled properly, there were, to put it mildly, virtually no details at all. That happens.” When Newsweek asked a senior Administration official about this characterization of a warning which was passed to White House policymakers, and whether it tracked what was presented at the December 22 Presidential briefing, the official would not comment.
I quoted a good lot of that; because I think that it is important to note, that United States Government, in particular, the President; cannot look into a crystal ball and tell the American people where we are going to be hit next. Also too; there seems to be a bit of rumbling amongst the Conservative Bloggers about how Obama handled the attacks. Yes, I know, it looked horrible. In fact, it kind of pissed me off as well. But, Bush did the same stuff, prior to 9/11.
Remember this? From Salon.com:
We’ve known for years now that George W. Bush received a presidential daily briefing on Aug. 6, 2001, in which he was warned: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” We’ve known for almost as long that Bush went fishing afterward.
What we didn’t know is what happened in between the briefing and the fishing, and now Suskind is here to tell us. Bush listened to the briefing, Suskind says, then told the CIA briefer: “All right. You’ve covered your ass, now.”
The point that I am trying to make here guys, is that while it might be fun to try and tag this President and blame him directly for the attempted terrorist attack; I am afraid that I just cannot play along here. President Obama just cannot sit and predict when something like this is going to happen. Blaming Obama for this sort of a thing is just plain stupid. Was the ball dropped? Yes. Did someone screw up? Yes. Can Obama be blamed for any of that. Sorry, I’m afraid that is just plain wrong. President Obama cannot predict when one of the Governmental agencies is going to make a mistake, much less when a terrorist attack is going to happen.
Now, if you are one of those people that believes that Obama is somehow trying to undermine the Nation’s intelligence; because he is some sort of pseudo-Muslim. Then, you are just a plain idiot that believes every damned e-mail that you read, then you have issues that is beyond the scope of this blog, much less this blog entry.
So, in short, while this might not look good. I am afraid this finger pointing by the right — is just plain silly.
Others in the Conservative, “Obama is a terrorist” Meme Machine: Gateway Pundit, Erick’s blog, The Strata-Sphere, Outside The Beltway, YID With LID, Riehl World View, Laura Rozen’s Blog and THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS
Update: Since I originally wrote this earlier today; there has been some new information come to light. I have funny feeling, that after the Holiday and the weekend are past. You are going to see some resignations of some posts within Obama’s cabinet. I could be wrong though. We will have to wait and see. But, from the looks of this; someone’s head is going to roll, when Obama gets back from his Holiday vacation.
Michael Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center since 2007, decided not to return to his agency’s “bat cave” nerve center in McLean, Va., until several days after Christmas, two U.S. officials said.
