Obama blames 'flaws' for bomb plot

Dec 29 2009

A "systemic failure" by American intelligence allowed the alleged terrorist behind the Christmas Day airliner bomb plot to board the aircraft despite warnings about his extremist views, US President Barack Obama said.

Mr Obama said initial investigations into the failed attack had found the information passed on by the father of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was not properly shared, meaning he was not barred from flying.

"Where our government has information on a known extremist and that information is not shared and acted upon as it should have so that this extremist boarded a plane with dangerous explosives that could have cost nearly 300 lives, a systemic failure has occurred and I consider that totally unacceptable," he said.

"We need to learn from this episode and act quickly to fix the flaws in our system because our security is at stake and lives are at stake," he said in a statement from Hawaii where he is holidaying with his family.