Word: attacks
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President George W. Bush was widely criticized for failing to focus before 9/11 on what U.S. intelligence knew of al-Qaeda's threat to America. But was President Barack Obama similarly remiss in the months before the attempted Christmas Day attack on a Detroit-bound airliner? So far, the White House hasn't provided enough information to make the judgment...
...airliner allegedly carrying explosives on his body. On Jan. 7, the President's top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, laid out what he said were the facts of the failure. "It was known that AQAP [al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the group that took responsibility for the attempted attack] not only sought to strike U.S. targets in Yemen," Brennan said, "but that it also sought to strike the U.S. homeland. Indeed, there was a threat stream of intelligence on this threat." (See pictures from the life of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab...
...asked on Jan. 7 when the specific threat posed to the homeland by AQAP first became known, he did not directly answer the question. He did acknowledge that he traveled to Saudi Arabia last September to investigate AQAP's attempted assassination of the kingdom's top counterterrorism official. That attack used explosives sewn into clothing and detonated with a chemical trigger, which is harder to detect than a traditional metal trigger...
...finished-intelligence report noting that such "chemically triggered" bombs "would pose a particular challenge to screening efforts." Although there was no indication the bombs were intended for use against airliners, "our analysts did, however, assess that such IEDs of this new sort could be used in an aviation-focused attack," the official said...
...time, Balkenende said that Saddam consistently flouted U.N. resolutions, but the inquiry's 550-page final report insisted that there was no U.N. mandate for the attack. "There was insufficient legitimacy" for the invasion, commission chairman Willibrord Davids said. Although the commission quashed rumors that the Netherlands played a military role in the invasion, it is still expected to embarrass Balkenende for offering vital political support despite flimsy evidence of Iraq's threat...