Statement by Congressman Michael McCaul, Ranking Member on the Homeland Security Intelligence Subcommittee, on today's briefings on intelligence failures

"It’s clear that this is a failure of the intelligence community to act upon specific information collected. Had they acted, I feel very confident that Abdulmutallab wouldn’t have been able to get on the plane in the first place because he wouldn’t have had a visa to get into the United States. That’s the fundamental error in this case. The fact that the State Department didn’t revoke his visa is inexcusable and I think that people need to be held accountable for this serious error. My biggest concern in the next couple of weeks is the fact that they have identified a vulnerability, they know we have a weakness and they will continue to exploit it on future flights. We don’t know how many more individuals are still out there that were trained by this radical cleric in Yemen and may be still trying to pull off the same stunt."