Intelligence director Dennis Blair takes fall for Christmas bomber

Dennis Blair, director of national intelligence, will resign effective May 28. The Senate Intelligence Committee this week heavily criticized his agency's handling of recent terror incidents, including the Christmas bomber.

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Specifically targeted for criticism was the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), which Blair oversees.

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“Following 9/11, Congress created the NCTC and charged it with serving as ‘the primary organization in the United States government for analyzing and integrating all intelligence possessed or acquired by the United States government,’ ” the committee reported. “In practice, however, the committee found that no one agency saw itself as being responsible for tracking and identifying all terrorism threats. In addition, technology across the IC [intelligence community] is not adequate to provide search enhancing tools for analysis, which contributed to the failure of the IC to identify Abdulmutallab as a potential threat.”

The committee report then goes on to identify “14 specific points of failure – a series of human errors, technical problems, systemic obstacles, analytical misjudgments, and competing priorities – which resulted in Abdulmutallab being able to travel to the United States on December 25, 2009.”

“The attempted Christmas Day attack was marked by several intelligence failures,” said committee chairman Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) of California. “It’s vital that reforms be made quickly to prevent future attacks by Al Qaeda, its affiliates, and other terrorist groups. The Christmas Day attempt and the recent attempted bombing in Times Square show that we are targets, and we must stay one step ahead of the terrorists.”

“We cannot depend on dumb luck, incompetent terrorists, and alert citizens to keep our families safe,” said Sen. Christopher Bond (R) of Missouri, committee vice chairman. “It is critical we make changes to prevent these types of intelligence failures in the future.”

In response to the Senate report, Senator Blair noted that, “The Intelligence Community is aggressively focused on potential threats, especially new tactics by radicalized individuals. At the same time, institutional and technological barriers remain that prevent seamless sharing of information.”

It’s now clear that a new director of central intelligence will be addressing those institutional and technological barriers.

Homegrown terrorism a growing concern for US intelligence