On the morning of December 20, 2010, British police arrested 12 men in a large-scale counterterrorism operation at a time when there have been growing concerns about threats of terrorist attacks across Europe. The Wall Street Journal reported that: "The arrests represent one of the largest counterterror operations by U.K. authorities in recent years... Recent months have seen a number of terrorist-related arrests across the region, including in Belgium, Denmark and Norway... An attack by a suspected suicide bomber this month in Stockholm heightened fears that terror groups are targeting nontraditional sites." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703886904576030912668857954.html
These arrests came after al Qaeda had warned Europe of the threat of a commando-style attack, such as the one conducted in Mumbai in 2008. Since the arrests, it has been learned that one of the planned targets for these terrorist plotters in the UK was the US Embassy in London.
Yet in the afternoon of December 20, hours after the British arrests had been reported on numerous news broadcasts and Internet sites, the man above, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, sat down for a television interview with ABC news anchor Diane Sawyer, along with his Homeland Security colleagues, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and White House Counterterrorism Advisor John Brennan, and responded to Diane Sawyer's question about the UK arrests with a blank stare and the response "London?". Brennan quickly clarified that he knew of the arrests and saw no concern for the US homeland.
Since the US Embassy in London was found on the suspects' "targeting list", as the Weekly Standard said, the first official response from Brennan that "there was no apparent 'homeland nexus' is small comfort to the Americans working at the London embassy. In addition, embassies have long been attractive targets for jihadists. Any threat to an American embassy, especially from a group that was already practicing with explosives, is serious."
The next day, Brennan told the press: "I know there was attention by the media about these arrests and it was constantly on the news networks. I am glad that Jim Clapper is not sitting in front of the TV 24 hours a day and monitoring what is coming out of the media.”
Why would anyone in the 21st Century have to watch TV 24 hours a day to keep up with the latest news? Does DNI Clapper not own a smart phone or other mobile device with Internet access as most of the US population does? Does Clapper not have staff traveling with him on appointments, especially to an interview on national television, who have easy access to the Internet 24/7; not to mention the fact that any such staff should have had information about important arrests of Muslim jihadists by one of our closest allies in order to brief the head of "National Intelligence"? Later the DNI's office admitted that Clapper had not been briefed on the arrests in the UK before going to the ABC interview.
The office of the Director of National Intelligence was created by Congress after the 9/11 Commission recommended such a function in order to better coordinate the sharing of information between the various intelligence agencies. If the current DNI does not know of the latest developments in fighting terrorism, why do we have this office and the bureaucracy that goes with it?
DNI Clapper's failure to be in the loop on the UK arrests is also particularly troublesome because "American officials have repeatedly trumpeted the cross-Atlantic counterterrorism cooperation between the UK and U.S. How, then, could American authorities not have known that this bust was going down? And if they did know, as they almost certainly did, then how could they have forgotten to tell the DNI? In other words, there are good reasons to believe that Clapper should have been informed not only after the fact, but also beforehand." http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/dni-director-james-clapper-needs-know_525796.html
Since the UK arrests took place, five other suspected Muslim jihadists were arrested in Denmark and Sweden for planning a commando-style gun attack at the Copenhagen offices of a Danish newspaper that printed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005. All of the unsuccessful jihadist attacks stopped by our allies' efficient counterterrorism operations in Europe appear to fit within the scope of the threat issued by al Qaeda earlier in the holiday season.
I wonder if our Director of National Intelligence knows about these events since apparently, according to the White House Counterterrorism Advisor, Clapper does not follow TV news and seems to lack routine access to the Internet or even "intelligent" staff.
How fortunate we were that these terrorists were caught by our European allies. If any such terrorist plans had been directed at the US homeland (as one was in 2009 on a Christmas day flight from Amsterdam) would our current team of Counterterrorism "Keystone cops" have stopped it? What a fortunate Christmas we have had.
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