Many question ‘system works’ assessment

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration claim that “the system worked” after a failed aircraft bombing wasn’t quite as jolting as President George W. Bush’s “Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job” while New Orleans sank under deadly Hurricane Katrina. But both raised disturbing questions about presidential response in a time of crisis.

Bush’s praise for his beleaguered FEMA director, Michael Brown, came while storm evacuees remained trapped in the Louisiana Superdome and victims’ bloated bodies floated in the streets. It became a clarion call for all his administration did wrong during the 2005 calamity — and a larger symbol of all that people disliked generally about Bush.

Obama is dealing with a crisis of a different sort, Friday’s attempt by a 23-year-old Nigerian to blow up a Detroit-bound flight from Amsterdam. It ended with only a quickly extinguished fire, no lives lost and the man in custody.

Still, the close call prompted alarm about government performance.

UHow did airport security, improved at much cost after the 2001 terrorist attacks, miss the bomber’s concealed explosives?

UHow did the terrorist watchlist system allow Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to keep his American tourist visa and avoid extra flight screening despite his father telling authorities his concerns about the younger man’s radicalization?

UWhy didn’t Abdulmutallab’s lack of luggage, and cash purchase for an international flight, raise suspicions?

UWhy was the plot thwarted only by an apparent explosive malfunction and fellow passengers’ quick action?

Amid those questions, administration officials’ repeated statements that “the system worked” were jarring. They made it sound like the administration doesn’t get it, like it is paying too much attention to political fallout and too little to public fears.

Officials insist the assertion, made by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and White House press secretary Robert Gibbs Sunday on television talk shows, referred only to heightened security procedures scrambled into place after the incident.

They say it is being purposely taken out of context by partisans playing politics with near-disaster.

They note Obama ordered two reviews, of the nation’s multilayered terrorist watch-list system and of airport security procedures, something he clearly wouldn’t do if he believed there were no flaws.

Gibbs and Napolitano also said they were hoping to instill confidence in air safety.

The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.