Obama consults top aides on terror probes

HONOLULU, Hawaii, Jan 2, 2010 - US President Barack Obama on Friday opened 2010 with a secure telephone call with top national security advisors to discuss two reviews of the thwarted bid to bomb a Northwest Airlines jet.

Obama, on vacation in his home state of Hawaii, spoke to National Security Council chief of staff Denis McDonough and his top anti-terror advisor John Brennan, a White House official said on condition of anonymity.

After the call, Obama resumed his oft-interrupted vacation with a game of basketball at a Marine base near the house he is renting for his family in Hawaii.

Angered by how narrowly tragedy was averted in a country still scarred by the September 11, 2001 attacks, Obama was to spend the weekend poring over the preliminary reports of two probes he demanded into the Christmas Day attack.

The president plans to meet heads of intelligence agencies and relevant government departments Tuesday in Washington to discuss the findings.

Obama has ordered one assessment of the no-fly list system and a separate probe into how suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab sneaked an explosive device past security at Amsterdam airport onto a plane bound for the United States.

“Intelligence itself, and the collection thereof is always going to be difficult and is not always going to result in complete information and he understands that,” a senior US official said on Thursday.

“But by the same token, when we do have good information ... the failure to share that information is not going to be tolerated.”

Obama has been receiving regular updates on the probes and issues related to the attack on paper and online and officials and US agencies were working overtime to plug gaps in the US aviation security system.

- AFP