More evidence that Obama and company completely botched the Crotch Bomber intelligence:
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was named in a file of people based in Britain who had made contact with radical Muslim preachers. The file was sent to the US authorities in 2008.
The disclosure will embarrass President Barack Obama, who is already under pressure after failures by US intelligence to identify the bomber.
It will also add to concern over the state of the “special relationship” between Downing Street and the White House following last year’s dispute over the early release of the Lockerbie bomber.
It is extremely unusual for the Prime Minister’s office to comment on intelligence matters. The move could be seen as an attempt to rebuff criticism from senior American figures who claimed that Britain had nurtured Islamic extremism.
At first it was thought that MI5 gathered only limited information on Abdulmutallab and had therefore not alerted the US.
However, in an official briefing, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said that British intelligence was shared with the Americans.
He said: “Clearly there was security information about this individual’s activities and that was information that was shared with the US authorities. That is the key point.”
The spokesman added: “We are pretty certain that he was radicalised outside the UK. He [Abdulmutallab] left the UK in October 2008.
“But it is also clear that while he was here he was attempting to make contact with people and that is the intelligence we were able to secure from the intelligence services.”
Who will Obama throw under the bus now?
See author page
…. nothing to see here.. .please move along..
Obama has so damaged the “special relationship” with Britain it’s a wonder the Brits bother to tell us anything.
How embarrassing that the Brits figured out this was a bad guy, TOLD us he was and Obama’s Administration just ignored it.
When will we have congressional hearings to determine who in the Obama Administration is responsible for this mess?
[Racist comment removed by Moderator]-Aye
Blaming your allies for your own epic failures — what a great way to improve relationships. These libtards are soooo intelligent. Kudos to the Brits for calling them out on it.
@N. Ando:
Take your racist garbage back to Kos, Huffpo, or wherever it is you came from.
Mike, Mike Mike . . . in your effort to slam Obama, you descend into incoherence. Let’s just look at two sentences:
“Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was named in a file of people based in Britain who had made contact with radical Muslim preachers. The file was sent to the US authorities in 2008.”
October 2008 it was sent . . . when Obama was not president. Trying to remember who was president then, and whose CIA could have alerted whose State to take the guy off any prospective visa lists . . . but I can’t seem to remember who was president in 2008 . . . it’s all a fog. Do you recall who was president then, Mike?
Bush, you say? The incompetent GOPer prez? So how in the heck is Obama “embarrassed” by another Bushie failure? Unless the “Obama and company” mentioned above is actually meant as “Obama and the Bush administration”, your top post is just another piece of right wing nonsense.
It gets better. You accuse the president of your country thusly: “Obama has so damaged the ‘special relationship’ with Britain it’s a wonder the Brits bother to tell us anything.” Right . . . after trumpeting the fact that they told Bush in October 2008 about this guy. But even the article you link too doesn’t claim that MI5 had any real info on the guy.
And what is your evidence that the relationship is “damaged”? What is it, other than your own say-so? C’mon, smart guy! Spell out your EVIDENCE that the US relationship with Britain has suffered under Obama . . . then tell me exactly what Obama did to destroy it! And feel free to call your mentor Zbig for talking points!
Even better, the post alludes to strain in the special relationship from . . . Obama’s opposition to the release and subsequent Libyan coronation of the Lockerbie bomber. Really? What would you cons have had Obama do when the Scots released a mass murdered . . . throw him a party?
You cons, in your effort to slam Obama for EVERYTHING he does, have become totally incoherent. The article I just read about cons refusing to support Obama’s continuation of Bushie intel. programs speaks volumes. There is no intellectual honesty on the right, only sore-loser partisanship. And you wonder why the voters don’t trust the wingnuts and teabaggers with the reins of power.
True, the files came during 2008 especialy during a time of which a President generaly starts to shut down shop and relay most duties to the House of Congress till the new President is validated and put into power. You don’t know about that little bit? Blaming essentialy a Lame Duck, while the true operators of the Intellegence slams him for incompetence while he follows the laws by passing his Exectuive powers over to Congress? A pure ignorant cop out.
Obama has sat for over a year on intellegence that details the subject’s name, agenda, age, afflication, and most imporant of all his current locations. The attacker’s own father has tried multiple times to make contact with the American Government in 2009 to warn his son will attack. Multiple times, not once as the media seems to play it. There is nothing that can be done to blame Bush for this one, it falls squarely in Obama’s pants as three of the 16 American intellegence agencies have given warnings to the President about potential attacks from this high value target from August all the way up to December of 2009. Trying to spin Obama innocent and subjected victim to the, “incompetence” of the previous administration doesn’t hold water given the current President was briefed multiple times well over 10 months worth of warning and has adopted a very loose security protocol reguarding terrorist attacks, as proven by the two seperate walk in events at the White House.
The British Government IS highly angered by Obama’s current attitude towards the British, especialy in reguards with how he’s handled Intellegence given to his predessor and himself reguarding high value threats to both nations. The British Paraliment is not exactly saying friendly things about the man, with most “friendly” comments about the current United States President being mostly Satire mocking the President’s lacking understanding of many issues relating to both nations especialy so with reguards towards security interests and trade interests of both nations.
As the CIA, FBI, and other intellegence firms keep getting slammed by the current White House and House of Congress majority you will see an over all decrease of operatives as they will leave to work in private Security firms. You do not abuse your employees and claim they failed to do their job, especialy when they have detailed materials cataloging them warning you about upcoming hazards. President Obama has been doing just this by insisting he, “never” got the files.
Very nicely done Mr. Irons.
After Obama’s comments about the CIA, the agency made sure the public was informed that their information was sent to Washington. Proof of that already appears in other topics right here at FA, I’m sure you know that, but apparently@B-Rob: hasn’t kept himself appraised of current events but he yaks on anyway.
Now, on top of M15 and information from other sources, today we have the State Department making it clear that they also passed the appropriate information on to NCTC.
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/01/04/state_department_official_visas_viper_cable_just_the_tip_of_the_iceberg
@B-Rob:
But, all it takes is for someone to mention a date and the Obamabots grasp at straws to blame it on Bush. Face the facts, Obama is at the helm now, and he doesn’t know what direction his ship(Titanic) is heading.
BTW, Mike is correct. Obama the twit has been working hard during his time in office to screw up our relationship with GB.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/gordon-brown/6224813/Barack-Obama-rebuffs-Gordon-Brown-as-special-relationship-sinks-to-new-low.html
We’d know about the “intellectual honesty” of the Left if they didn’t keep meeting behind closed doors.
Ah. Gagdad Bob, the masochistic tea-baggee has returned. I just hope he washed his hands this time.
@B-Rob
Calling people Cons may be acceptable for the corretional institute crowd you normally hang out with, but here we tend to address people with their actual names.
B-rob
Keep on talking, bub. You show your ignorance every time you open your mouth. The internet will assure that you lefties cannot change history any more the way the dems and the media have always done before. No information is totally obliterated. All information is somewhere, not lost in space as you seem to believe.
oh my…. still blaming Bush for the underwear bomber, billy bob? Do catch up…
I did a post on the specifics of the Obama admin data transfer, and his blame of the CIA in order to deflect blame away from himself and his appointees just a few days ago.
What data may have been in the files on the underwear bomber under Bush is zip, nada, worthless compared to the “red alert” information they possessed a month prior to the terrorist attempt. An attack thwarted not by the ever vigilant (/sarc) POTUS, but by astute and active passengers on the plane itself.
A for BDS effort. F for implementation of transfer of blame. Boy would I love to see you as the attorney across the court room aisle in any lawsuit I was involved in. Fish in a barrel….