Tonight on Countdown, Richard Wolffe dropped a bombshell (no pun intended) about the situation with the Flight 253 "underpants bomber," Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, by saying that there is a serious question about whether or not there was foul play, information intentionally withheld, and/or conspiracy.
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Update 7:
As of this morning (12/5) this is still being reported on MSNBC, and so far, I have seen no White House official call in and refute the story that Wolffe broke last night. In the past, more than once, I have seen White House officials, usually Axelrod, call in and respond to and/or correct things being reported on MSNBC in the morning.
Video link to segment on Rachel Maddow's show and transcript added below.
joanneleon's diary :: ::
According to Wolffe, the White House is investigating whether or not the systemic failure was anything more than human error. The questions being asked are -- was this some kind of failure due to internal tensions between intelligence communities? Was information withheld intentionally in order to "make someone look bad?"
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During the interview with Wolffe on Countdown, he repeated the phrase "cock up or conspiracy?" more than once and made it clear that his information was coming from the White House.
Wolffe was later on Rachel Maddow's show by telephone. His words were a bit calmer this time, but again he said that there is an investigation and that there is a question about whether or not the withholding of information was intentional. He said that there is a lot of finger pointing going on in intelligence community, that the president is really "steamed" and that there is a line of inquiry that goes to the heart of why this wasn't shared. He and Rachel talked about how the intent may not necessarily be malicious, but may be more political.
I think we should expect to hear more about this, as it looks like the White House put this information out intentionally, even if anonymously.
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RW: Right. The question is, was this information that was shared... remember, there was some sharing of information but it involves the father of this, in the end, terrorist, who walks in to see the CIA officials in a foreign embassy, this is an American embassy in a foreign country, and you know, that information wasn't shared fully. Why wasn't it shared fully? The question there is again, cock up or conspiracy. Was there a reason these agencies were at war with each other that prevented that intelligence from being shared?
KO: Is the implication there that there is at least a possibility that somebody understood how serious this could be and yet withheld information in order to make some other part of the counterterrorism system look bad?
RW: That has got to be an area that the White House is looking into and, you know, motives can be hard to assess because it's not clear that this person was easily identified as a terrorist. Even with the father coming forward saying they had concerns, was that more of a family concern or were there enough fingerprints here about the radicalization of this individual to suggest that it should have been taken to a different level -- at the very least a security level beyond more than a nominal sharing of information. That's where this inquiry, this internal inquiry, for the moment, has to go.
KO: Well, certainly, not to get too far ahead of what the information the White House doesn't have, and presumably you don't have and certainly I don't have, but that seems to me that what you're describing, at least in theory, is a far greater threat than a guy with explosives on an airplane, whether or not he succeeds in blowing them up.
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KO: Ah, Richard's last point there, forgive me if I'm a little flustered, but that seemed a little startling to contemplate that in a day and age when presumably we're all, whatever we think of the threat of terror in this world, presumably we're all on the same side if we have something to do with this country, that somebody may be deliberately, in the counterterrorism system that we employ around the world, deliberately withholding information, no matter what the consequences might be. What do you think of that?
AH: I know, it was an astounding statement, especially since Richard said that he had talked to people in the White House who are leaning towards that conclusion in terms of a systemic failure in terms of how our intelligence system is operating...
Update 7: Transcript (done by me) of segment on The Rachel Maddow Show with Richard Wolffe and link to video.
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RM: We begin tonight with some breaking news on the White House investigation into exactly what happened with the Christmas day botched terror attempt. MSNBC political analyst, Richard Wolffe, will actually be joining us tonight by telephone with that. Richard, I know you shared some reporting on Countdown about a potentially very inflammatory development in the Christmas day terror plot investigation. What can you tell us about that reporting -- what else you've been able to learn?
RW: Well, Rachel, this investigation is still very much at a fact-finding stage where the White House is looking at, still, what happened. It's very preliminary. Obviously the president has just got back from vacation and just started prepping for his big session tomorrow, which, I'm told, is still going to focus on things like the screening processes that people face. But the question here, is whether or not the systemic failure that the president has talked about was anything more than human error.
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What's new and very worrying is the prospect that intelligence was deliberately withheld by one part of the American intelligence community from another -- either because of a grudge to make someone look bad or for any other reason that put petty politics above national security. Is that, in fact, the path that this White House inquiry is going down?
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