Report: Intelligence Failures Let Christmas Bomber Board Plane

Five months after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told Americans the "system worked" when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab failed to detonate a bomb on a Northwest flight Dec. 25, the Senate Committee on Intelligence has released a summary of their investigation into the incident and the conclusion is clear: The system didn't work.

According to the report, the committee found "systemic failures across the Intelligence Community which contributed to the failure to identify the threat posed by Abdulmutallab." Specifically, according to the report, the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) was not well-enough organized to "fulfill its mission" and the U.S. intelligence community does not have access to the technology needed for analysts to intelligence data.

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The report also cites 14 specific failures - what the committee terms "a series of human errors, technical problems systemic obstacles, analytical misjudgments, and competing priorities" - that allowed Abdulmutallab to board a plane to the United States.