This article is about President Obama’s speech given on Thursday in which he outlined the flaws in anti-terrorism security and his plans for a reform. This speech was brought on by the attempted, but failed, Christmas airline bombing. The failed bomber was 23-year-old Nigerian national, Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, who tried to smuggle the bomb aboard in his underwear. Instead of detonating, the bomb started his seat on fire.Some of the flaws the president pointed out were the fact that the intelligence agency was aware of the possibility of an attempt to attack the homeland, a failure to compare and connect “the dots” of intelligence among the intelligence agencies, and a fault in the watch list system that allowed the alleged bomber to remain off the no fly list. President Obama’s plan for reform involves an intelligence agent following up on every high priority threat, quicker distribution of intelligence reports, an overhaul on current analysis efforts, and strengthening the criteria for adding people to the watch list, particularly the no-fly list.There are some who disagree with President Obama’s saying that it’s much easier to make comments and plans in retrospect of an event. Personally, I’m not entirely clear on how making sure the information is more detailed and widespread in intelligence agencies will help advance airport security or prevent another attempted bombing, but it may help. In my opinion, these reforms may have been made prematurely, because I don’t believe that a little less than two weeks is enough time to accurately review what steps were and weren’t taken by the intelligence agencies concerned in this event. Also, a similar event has occurred in the past under the same heads of these agencies, maybe it is time to look into the agencies themselves, not just their policies.
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