The system worked

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is confident that her department is keeping us safe. Her interview today with CNN is at the following link. I encourage you to play the video and listen to what Secretary Napolitano says as this is much more interesting than reading the CNN text of the interview:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/27/airline.terror.napolitano/index.html

I think that these quotes are most important:

• “One thing that I’d like to point out is that the system worked.”
  

The only reason that we are not picking through the remains of a burning aircraft is that the detonator on the bomb malfunctioned. How can this be considered a success for the “system”.

• “Within literally an hour to 90 minutes of the incident occurring all 128 flights in the air had been notified to take some special measures in light of what had occurred on the Northwest Airlines flight.”
  

Napolitano thinks that a 90 minute lapse in notifying flights in the air is a “success”. If this was part of a larger plot it would have most likely been planned as a coordinated attack. This means that the other bombers on other flights would have been attempting to detonate their explosive devices at approximately the same time.

When asked how the bomber was able to bring the explosives through security Napolitano said:

• “We are asking the same questions..”
  

Napolitano says the following:

• “He was stopped before any damage could be done”
  

This must be repeated, it is clear that the only reason he was stopped was a malfunction in the detonator.

• “He was on a tied list that has half a million names on it.”
  

So if you have ties to terrorists it is still ok to obtain a visa and fly into the USA. Napolitano implies that because the tied list has so many names it is ignored.

When asked about the fact that the bomber’s own father reported him as a terrorist to the US Embassy Napolitano says:

• “We need to ascertain who said what to whom and when.”