State Department to McCaul: Father was not a credible enough source to revoke terror suspect's visa
State Department to McCaul: Father was not a credible enough source to revoke terror suspect’s visa
Below is the transcription of Congressman Michael McCaul’s (R-TX) exchange during today’s Homeland Security Committee hearing regarding intelligence failures that led to the Christmas Day terror attack. McCaul is Ranking Member of the Homeland Security Intelligence Subcommittee. Bold highlightedmaterial includes visa issue.
Testifying:
Michael E. Leiter, Director, National Counterterrorism Center
Jane Holl Lute, Deputy Secretary, Department of Homeland Security
Patrick F. Kennedy, Under Secretary, Management, Department of State
McCaul: "Thank you Mr. Chairman, This was not, this was clearly a failure in intelligence. I think all the witnesses have agreed to that. The president of the United States has as well. It’s more than a failure to connect the dots as we talked about so much. It’s a failure to identify dots or specific threat information coming in and acting upon it appropriately. We had this Christmas bomber’s father going to the Embassy warning us about his son. State Department issues a cable that basically stated that and sent it to law enforcement and I assume to the NCTC and stated information <inaudible> that Farouk may be involved in Yemini based extremist. And I think members of Congress and the American people don’t understand why with that type of information and Director Leiter with the specific intelligence coming in through the IC the intelligence community why that wasn’t linked together number one and why it wasn’t acted upon to insure that this man never got on this airplane in the first place. I think we all agree that this visa should have been revoked immediately given the information, I cant get into the classified information that you are privy to, but it was specific, What happened here?"
Leiter: "Congressman, some action was taken but as you have identified, as I have tried to say it was obviously not sufficient which was his name was entered into the terrorist identity <inaudible…> environment but that didn’t have automatic repercussions in terms of screening, visa revocation, or stopping him from boarding the plane. The other intelligence simply wasn’t identified associated with this individual. I can tell you that there was concern on the intelligence community’s part about potential attacks by Al Qaeda in Yemen and we were concerned even about the timing of that. What we didn’t connect was the individuals name or where that attack would occur. That was our failure."
McCaul: "And was that because it was misspelled? The name was misspelled? To me, you know if you type my name into Google for instance, M-C-C-A-U-L it’ll say did you mean M-C-C-A-L-L and so do you not have a similar type of capability?
Leiter: "The misspelling did not affect NCTC in any way it did affect as I understand it, and I’ll defer to Undersecretary Kennedy on this, from our perspective when his name was sent in, we actually put the spelling in both ways and the technology we use wouldn’t have made a difference."
McCaul: "Did you not have the cable that the state department sent?"
Leiter: "We did and we inserted the spelling based on a number of things.
"McCaul: "And you made a decision not to revoke the visa, given that information."
Leiter:"I don’t have the authority to revoke the visa. That’s an authority <inaudible>"
McCaul: "But can’t you call Secretary Kennedy and ‘you know I think we got a problem here, we ought to think about revoking this visa.’"
Leiter: "The intelligence community can, frankly that normally doesn’t occur, if the nomination itself comes from the State Department, it’s.."
McCaul: "Well I think there needs to be a lot better coordination going on here between these two entities. Mr. Kennedy, why given the information that you had why wasn’t the visa revoked?"
Kennedy: "Sir, it’s as I mentioned earlier, when we get any information when anyone appears at American embassies, saying that they have doubts about someone, we immediately generate what is called visa viper message.? We send that to the entire law enforcement and intelligence communities…
McCaul: "I understand the process but you had this information and you didn’t revoke the visa.? The cable I just read mentioned pretty clear that this man is associated with extremists in Yemen and you didn’t revoke his visa"
Kennedy: "But it was his father said he was associated with this, so we went as the intelligence and law enforcement community if they have any other information.? I don’t want to take much of your time, I can go ahead and visit with you after.
McCaul: "Well I think the father is a very credible source, this isn’t some anonymous person coming in, saying this."
Kennedy: "We have people coming in, Sir to American embassies every day attacking their relatives."
McCaul: "Well, I’m out of time but this was a failure extraordinaire, and I sure hope it doesn’t happen again. Secretary Lute, the last remaining time, they have identified a vulnerability in our system, I’m very concerned about the future, flights now, the system didn’t work and the screening you know they’re always a simple genius, they used chemical explosives which would be detected through x-ray but not through the magnetometer. I know we’re focused on the sixteen countries of interest in terms of pat-downs and more enhanced screening but I’m concerned about still the majority of airports out there where we are still vulnerable, they can still use this technique, and get an explosive, chemical explosives through the magnetometer. What is the Department of Homeland Security doing about that?"
Lute: "Congressman, we are not just focused on those sixteen places that you’ve identified, we’re focused on aviation security globally, and the travelling public to ensure their safety.? People have talked about silver bullets, we don’t look for silver bullets in homeland security, we know it takes a layer, multiple measures at layers and not just by us but by our international partners and it takes constant vigilance.? We have made some adjustments internally now to take the information that we get, push it forward, where we have teams on the ground which were authorities and airlines, where we don’t have specific teams, we’re looking to expand our teams as well.? This is not a ‘business-as-usual’ response, no one will be satisfied."
McCaul: "But my point is that there are still many airports vulnerable to the same technique deployed by this terrorist…"
Chairman: "The Gentleman’s time has expired…"