Obama slams ’systemic failures’ that allowed Nigerian bomber to board Detroit-bound flight

NEW YORK - President Barack Obama has come down heavily on a “mix of human and systemic failures” which facilitated the Nigerian bomber to board the Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day.

“It’s becoming clear that the system that has been in place for years now is not sufficiently up to date. We need to learn from this episode and act quickly to fix the flaws in our system because our security is at stake and lives are at stake…I consider that totally unacceptable,” the New York Daily News quoted Obama, as saying.

Obama also expressed “serious concerns” about the bureaucratic logjam that kept officials from acting on both a warning from the bomber’s father and newly disclosed intelligence warnings that a Nigerian might be on an Al Qaeda terror mission.

“Even without this one report, there were bits of information available within the intelligence community that could have - and should have - been pieced together. The suspect would have never been allowed to board that plane for America,” Obama said.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarded the Detroit-bound flight with a U.S. visa even though his father warned U.S. officials in November that his al Quada-linked son might be a threat.

Even in September, American intelligence had picked up warnings of plans for a holiday-week terror plot.

They also knew that Al Qaeda forces in Yemen planned to use a recruit dubbed “the Nigerian” for an upcoming attack.

“It was not obvious or readily apparent that all of it spoke to this attack, but in fact we believe it did,” a senior official said.

Obama called the lapse a “potentially catastrophic breach of security” that could have killed nearly 300 people. (ANI)