lalivre
January 5th, 2010, 11:17 PM
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama scolded 20 of his highest-level officials on Tuesday over the botched Christmas Day terror attack on an airliner bound for Detroit, taking them jointly to task for "a screw-up that could have been disastrous" and should have been avoided.
After that 90-minute private reckoning around a table in the super-secure White House Situation Room, a grim-faced Obama informed Americans that the government had enough information to thwart the attack ahead of time but that the intelligence community, though trained to do so, did not "connect those dots."
"That's not acceptable, and I will not tolerate it," he said, standing solo to address the issue publicly for the fifth time — and the first in Washington — since the Dec. 25 incident.
After that 90-minute private reckoning around a table in the super-secure White House Situation Room, a grim-faced Obama informed Americans that the government had enough information to thwart the attack ahead of time but that the intelligence community, though trained to do so, did not "connect those dots."
"That's not acceptable, and I will not tolerate it," he said, standing solo to address the issue publicly for the fifth time — and the first in Washington — since the Dec. 25 incident.