In the past two days, Robert Gibbs has taken to the podium in the White House briefing room to talk up a major administration win in the anti-terror fight – the fast capture of suspected Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad.
Yet during both Q-and-A sessions Tuesday and Wednesday, President Barack Obama’s press secretary fielded more than 75 tough questions about things that nearly went awry — and about several missteps that nearly allowed the 30-year old naturalized U.S. citizen from Pakistan to slip the dragnet.
“I think maybe the tale of this is law enforcement continues to do a superb job in keeping us safe,” a beleaguered Gibbs reminded reporters on Tuesday — after fielding a dozen queries about how Shahzad managed to board a Dubai-bound plane despite being listed on the federal no-fly list.
Gibbs’s grilling reflects a larger dilemma of the Obama administration in selling the public on the idea that they are waging a successful war on terror – especially after discarding of the uppercase “War on Terror” label coined by the Bush administration.
Making that argument even harder: The increasingly unpredictable and asymmetrical nature of the evolving threat of Islamic terrorism – and the administration’s change-on-the-fly approach to fixing holes in their own anti-terrorism policy.
On Tuesday, Gibbs suggested some of the blame for Shahzad’s boarding of the plane Sunday lay with the airline itself, because the company allowed him to board.
But on Wednesday, the administration announced the problem was with the rules for the government’s no-fly list. From now on, Gibbs announced, carriers would be required to refresh their lists every two hours, instead of the once-a-day currently mandated. - Politico Story
No comments:
Post a Comment