Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
News
Obama: "Red Flags" Should Have Stopped Flight Bomb Attempt
By
John Del Signore
Published Jan 5, 2010
Modified Jan 5, 2010
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
By
John Del Signore
Published Jan 5, 2010
Modified Jan 5, 2010
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
President Obama spent the afternoon in the Situation Room meeting with his national security team, the first face-to-face meeting with some two dozen advisers since the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. Following the meeting, the president acknowledged that the government knew of “other red flags” in the failed underwear bombing plot. "This was not a failure to collect intelligence, it was a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence that we already had," Obama told reporters at the White House. For good measure, he added that "the system has failed" in a major way. But at least the FAIL wasn't as bad as the one in Slovakia on Saturday!
Slovak officials decided to test security at an airport in Bratislava on Saturday by concealing plastic explosives in eight suitcases, and then waited to see what happened next, which was that one of the suitcases containing 96 grams of the plastic explosive RDX made it through the system without detection. Worse, the suitcase belonged to an electrician who lives in Ireland and had no idea his suitcase was being used for the test. The Irish Times reports, "the explosives had been concealed so well that he did not find them." Maybe that was a good thing, because when the Irish Army’s bomb squad finally visited his apartment three days later, the explosives were undisturbed. No harm, no foul, right?
Back in Washington, Obama's meeting was expected to cover possible changes to terror watch lists, as well as accountability by responsible authorities. It's unclear exactly what new measures were discussed, but the yesterday the TSA instructed airlines to conduct full-body searches for passengers bound for the United States from Yemen, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and 10 other countries. Also yesterday, Newt Gingrich appeared on Fox News to opine that the Obama administration starts "every day with a presumption that the rights of terrorists are more important than the lives of Americans." And in still other comedy news, The Daily Show returned last night after several weeks off, and host Jon Stewart was ready to unload about Terror 2.0. Watch below:
Tagged
Address
obama
plot
red flag
security
speech
terror
washington
yemen
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE news
Tompkins Square Park is getting a makeover. Some say it's too much.
Some regulars at the East Village park want to preserve its not-so-fancy offerings.
By
Willow Higgins
Published Oct 17, 2026 at 7:00 a.m. ET
Deer are all over New Jersey roads looking for sex, state officials warn
Mid-October through mid-December is deer mating season, which can be a danger to drivers as the sex-seeking creatures cross roadways throughout the Garden State.
By
Rosemary Misdary
News
Deer are all over New Jersey roads looking for sex, state officials warn
Mid-October through mid-December is deer mating season, which can be a danger to drivers as the sex-seeking creatures cross roadways throughout the Garden State.
By
Rosemary Misdary
Man messaged 'I got straight poison' before giving NYC college students fentanyl, feds say
By
Samantha Max
Inside the plan to fix the nearly collapsed Pfizer Building, 1/64th of an inch at a time
By
David Brand
School bus carrying autistic students got lost in Brooklyn for 4 hours last year
By
Jessica Gould
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .