How 12/25 Was Like 9/11 - Thomas H. Kean and John Farmer Jr., New York Times opinion.

How 12/25 Was Like 9/11 - Thomas H. Kean and John Farmer Jr., New York Times opinion.

In the days since the attempted Christmas Day airplane bombing, many officials, including the White House’s counterterrorism director, John Brennan, have insisted that the Detroit incident was “not like 9/11.” In many respects, we agree. But the government’s handling of the intelligence leading up to the attack was eerily reminiscent of one of the most shocking - and relatively underreported - revelations to come out of the 9/11 commission’s hearings. The commission, having been informed that before 9/11 the State Department maintained a list of known or suspected terrorists whose travel should be restricted, asked Federal Aviation Administration officials how many of that list’s 61,000 names were on the FAA’s “no fly” registry. The answer supplied by senior aviation administration officials was astonishing in two respects. First, the commission was told, the no-fly list had not 61,000 names but only 12, and included none of the 9/11 hijackers, even though the FBI was searching actively for two of them before the attack. Then came the bombshell: the FAA security officials were unaware - until the commission asked its question at a hearing - that the State Department maintained a terrorist watch list at all.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/opinion/06kean.html?ref=opinion