Obama and DHS Secretary Not on the Same Page

President Obama rendered a harsh verdict on the nation's intelligence community Tuesday. The bottom line said the President, is that U.S. intelligence and law enforcement had enough information to stop accused Northwest 253 bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from boarding the flight on Christmas, but failed to piece the information together.

"It now appears that weeks ago this information was passed to a component of our intelligence community but was not effectively distributed so as to get the suspect's name on a no-fly list," said the President.

The President said it was clear that the current intelligence system is out of date.

"When our government has information on a known extremist and that information is not shared and acted upon as it should have been," said the President, "a systemic failure has occurred, and I consider that totally unacceptable."

Two days ago, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano claimed that the information provided by the suspect's father was insufficient to put the son on the no-fly list.

The President flatly rejected that explanation. "Even without this one report," said President Obama, "there were bits of information available within the intelligence community that could have and should have been pieced together." - ABC News Story