Who knew?--Al Qaeda was involved in underwear bomb attempt?

Washington Post:

President Obama and his top advisers received new information Monday night about the attempted airliner attack in Detroit that has led them to believe there is "some linkage" with al-Qaeda, a senior administration official said Tuesday.

The official said the president and his top advisers are "increasingly confident" that Al Qaeda was involved in the attempted attacker's plans.

Obama, in his remarks to reporters earlier in the day, said that if intelligence about the suspect had been handled differently he would have been blocked from boarding a plane for the United States. Senior officials said that was among the new details that the president learned in a conference call with top national security officials - National Security Adviser Jim Jones, his top counterterrorism expert John Brennan, and deputy National Security adviser Tom Donilon - on Tuesday morning.

The new information "had to do with information that was in possession of the government...that spoke to both where the suspect ad been, what some of his thinking and plans were, what some of the plans of Al Qaeda were," the senior official said. The official added that the details had not been correlated as effectively as they had been in earlier instances of thwarted attacks, especially preceding the arrest of a young Afghan, Najibullah Zazi, who sought to build bombs after visiting an Al Qaeda training camp.

The flaws were twofold, officials said. National security operatives did not follow all of the established procedures, and the procedures themselves were flawed. Obama has ordered a complete review, and has asked for preliminary findings to be returned to him on Thursday of this week.

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Then there was the fact that both the bomber and al Qaeda said al Qaeda was involved. There seems to be good reason to take them at their word. Obama is not handling this well. He seems to be a couple of news cycles behind events. When you add some of the silly things said by Napolitano and Gibbs to the mix the administration is looking very amateurish.