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CNN Tonight
The Buck Stops with Me; Connecting Terror Dots; Terror Attempt Fallout; Security Breach; Secret Deals; Deadly Cold
Aired January 07, 2010 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Tonight, the terror report is in, warts and all. President Obama owns up, taking responsibility for intelligence mistakes in the Christmas Day bomb plot.
BARACK OBAMA (D-IL), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The buck stops with me.
PHILLIPS: The big question tonight, will there be a next time?
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Also, it's cold, deadly cold, extreme weather socking it to much of the country, the icy forecast not looking good. How long will the deep freeze last?
PHILLIPS: And twitter for cars? Really -- Ford wants to let you tweet and drive at the same time. Good idea?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN TONIGHT live from New York. Here now, Kyra Phillips and John Roberts.
PHILLIPS: And good evening everyone. I'm Kyra Phillips.
ROBERTS: And I'm John Roberts. Thanks very much for joining us tonight.
PHILLIPS: Well we begin with President Obama today taking full responsibility for intelligence mistakes that failed to stop the Christmas Day airline bombing plot. After reviewing a report summary of the attempted attack, he's ordered aggressive, aggressive moves across the board, changing the way information is dealt with.
ROBERTS: No one has been fired over the botched case, but President Obama made it clear he expects accountability from here on out. Our Dan Lothian is at the White House for us tonight. Dan, does the president think that if everyone had done their job right, that this attempted attack could have actually been stopped?
DAN LOTHIAN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well John, in fact, that is exactly what the president said tonight here at the White House, saying that there was a lot of information out there, there were bits and pieces of information but there was specific information that could have been put together and could have prevented this suspect from getting on the airplane. So certainly, there was -- there were systems here that failed.
The president pointed that out. But he did not want to point fingers at any one person or any one agency, saying that this was a system wide failure. The president, though, as we had been reporting, did take full responsibility for the failing, saying that, quote that "the buck stops with me." Now, what was the biggest thing that jumped out of these reviews today? I posed that question to the Mr. President's top counterterrorism adviser and to homeland security secretary as well. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LOTHIAN: That you found out (INAUDIBLE) secretary (INAUDIBLE) as well.
JOHN BRENNAN, W.H. SENIOR ADVISER ON COUNTERTERRORISM: Al Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula is an extension of al Qaeda core coming out of Pakistan. In my view, it is one of the most lethal and one of the most concerning of it. The fact that they had moved forward to try to execute this attack against the homeland, I think demonstrating to us and this is what the reviews have uncovered that we had a strategic sense of sort of where they were going, but we didn't know they had progressed to the point of actually launching individuals here. And we have taken that lesson and so now we're on top of it.
JANET NAPOLITANO, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: I think, following up on that, not just the determination of al Qaeda and al Qaeda Arabian Peninsula, but the tactic of using an individual to foment an attack as opposed to a large conspiracy or a multi-person conspiracy such as we saw in 9/11. That is something that affects intelligence, it really emphasizes now a renewed importance on how different intelligence is integrated and analyzed and threat streams are followed through, and again, it will impact how we continue to review the need to improve airport security around the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LOTHIAN: Now, going forward, the president says that the intelligence community needs to speed up the way in which they analyze information in which that -- the way that that information is passed around to the various agencies and that all of the information needs to be treated, specifically these high priority cases, need to be treated with specific attention so that nothing else falls through the cracks -- John.
ROBERTS: Dan, how could the American people be assured that the steps that the administration is taking will be followed through on? After the 9/11 commission reported, the National Counterterrorism Center was created. People thought that that had dealt with all these problems and we find out five years later that they're not dealt with.
LOTHIAN: You're right and that is a very big question. You know the White House is saying that this -- what is happening today, and these reforms that the president is putting in place is just the beginning of a very long process. That Mr. Brennan will stay on top of this; will make sure that these various agency heads do carry out the reforms that the president is putting into place.
And in terms of who is going to be held accountable for this, well right now the president has ordered a review from these various agencies that they take a look within to find out exactly what broke down. He wants an answer back, the progress on that review in 30 days -- John.
ROBERTS: Dan Lothian for us tonight at the White House -- Dan, thanks.
PHILLIPS: President Obama admitted today that too many crucial intelligence clues about the Christmas Day plot fell through the cracks. The National Counterterrorism Center is the place this information is supposed to be pored over. Jeanne Meserve looks into why the dots were never even connected.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the brain that is supposed to synthesize and sort and make sense of the tens of thousands of pieces of intelligence collected every day by agencies and departments all across the U.S. government.
MICHAEL LEITER, NCTC DIRECTOR: There is one place in the U.S. government where all information about known and suspected terrorists comes, which is the National Counterterrorism Center.
MESERVE: But the NCTC, as it's known did not see Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab emerging as a threat, despite multiple clues.
OBAMA: Rather than a failure to collect or share intelligence, this was a failure to connect and understand the intelligence that we already have.
MESERVE: NCTC was created after the 9/11 attacks to do exactly that, put together pieces of the puzzle to create a comprehensive threat picture. The NCTC is small, with only about 600 employees. Two-thirds of them detail from other government agencies like the CIA and FBI. Half of them are analysts who sift out the important pieces of information and put them together. A former NCTC official says the volume of tips and leads is so great that the center needs other agencies to flag important items.
RICK NELSON, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC & INTL. STUDIES: When someone in the field raises a concern and says, hey, I'm concerned about this individual, can you at NCTC -- can you put together all of the pieces that you have available regarding this individual in the data base and can you make an assessment on them? That's how the system can work very, very well and that's how it didn't work in this case.
MESERVE: Computers help, but not enough experts say. NCTC analysts have access to about 30...
(AUDIO GAP) MESERVE: ... query and other AD (ph) networks maintained by other government agencies. But different classification levels, legal issues and technological constraints make it difficult to do searches.
FRANCES FRAGOS TOWNSEND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CONTRIBUTOR: We need to make sure that the NCTC has the tools they need to actually make sense of now the vast quantities of information, the dozens of databases that they have access to so that they can do their job.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MESERVE: And now another NCTC issue has emerged, the decision of Director Michael Leiter to go on vacation a day after the attempted bombing. This afternoon John Brennan, the president's top counterterrorism adviser, said that he had personally told Leiter to take that scheduled vacation with his son upon receiving assurances that the NCTC would be fully staffed -- back to you.
PHILLIPS: Jeanne Meserve, thanks so much.
ROBERTS: New information tonight on what turned out to be a key mistake in trapping Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The misspelling of his name in State Department files. Our foreign affairs correspondent Jill Dougherty joins us now from the State Department with the latest -- what do you got, Jill?
JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John, this is brand new information, because it really -- we did not know before about this misspelling, so we were talking about senior officials just a few minutes ago. Here's what they're telling us. That remember when the father in Africa came to the embassy and said that he was concerned about his son and gave more concerning information about the fact he was under the influence of extremists.
OK, at that point, the embassy searches this guy's name, but there is a misspelling, and so they used a search engine that was kind of a limited one. It didn't ping a whole lot of possible spellings. And so they said you know we don't find that he has a visa. They don't find out that he has a visa until December 25th, after he has been arrested.
Now, when we talked with the State Department, they said, in essence, this is no big deal. It's kind of a red herring because the big decision was being made back in Washington by the NCTC as to whether or not this suspect really was a terrorist. He was decided to be a potential terrorist, but not a terrorist. So I guess the bottom line here is, number one, we're getting information that we did not have before, and it really does contradict information that we were getting from the State Department. And then the other part of it is apparently the State Department never really followed up on this issue of the visa until it was very, very late, and that looks like they really dropped the ball on that -- John.
ROBERTS: All right. As the president said today, a lot of balls were dropped in this whole case. Jill Dougherty for us tonight in Washington -- Jill, thanks. And we're just now getting a look at the surveillance video of that man who caused that massive security nightmare Sunday at Newark International Airport.
PHILLIPS: Right after the man walked the wrong way through a security passageway, officials had to shut down one terminal for hours and then rescreen thousands of passengers, and they never found the guy. Susan Candiotti joins us now live with more. And I saw you actually in the Newsroom. Everybody was looking at this tape, trying to figure out what it meant and TSA confirmed it and here we are.
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Well clearly, it shows what happened leading up to all of that chaos and thanks to New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg because he's the one that asked the TSA and the Port Authority to release the video in hopes of maybe someone recognizing this guy, but let's get to the video. Let's see what it is.
First of all, you are going to see a man standing at a security checkpoint in a light-colored jacket. And then he is approached by a TSA uniformed officer who tells him to get back on the other side of the rope line. Then about four minutes later, the TSA officer in the blue shirt walks away from his post. A Homeland Security official says he was distracted by someone who asked a question.
And then about 30 seconds later, with the desk unattended, you are going to see a woman wearing a white coat approach the desk from the gate area. The man in question ducks under the security rope line and greets the woman with a kiss and a hug, and then the two turn and walk back into the secure gate area. And authorities found out (INAUDIBLE) about all of this from a passenger, and then there was a mad scramble to find the man. They never did, as you know.
Two official sources tell CNN that the TSA later learned that this man left using just a regular airport exit, and he was gone about 20 minutes later. By that time the TSA was still trying to get its hands on its own surveillance video and found out that its cameras weren't recording, and then they had to get video from Continental Airlines, and all of that took almost an hour and a half. And as we all know, it took about seven hours to get everything back to normal, so what a mess.
PHILLIPS: So what's the TSA's response?
CANDIOTTI: Well now they're saying it's a good thing that the video has been released, and they acknowledge that it was the actions of that TSA officer that led to all of this, because he left his post, and they add, quote, "we will use this hard lesson to reinforce the sharp focus and tight discipline at all our stations across the country and ensure that we maintain the public trust."
ROBERTS: Like everybody else, I was watching that video today, and I couldn't figure out -- she came up through the exit, met him and then they went back inside. What were they going back inside for is the question I had?
(CROSSTALK)
CANDIOTTI: Was he meeting her there, he knew was she coming in, was she in transit? We don't know. We don't know the answer to this.
ROBERTS: Was the plan for her just to come out and say hi and then go back. Who knows, but...
CANDIOTTI: Good question...
(CROSSTALK)
ROBERTS: But if they ever find this person, what are the potential penalties?
CANDIOTTI: He's in deep trouble both potentially from civil and the criminal side. Civilly he could get up to a $10,000 fine. Criminally if they can prove intent, they could charge him with security violations and he could face up to 10 years in jail. If they cannot prove intent to harm, to cause harm, then he could still get up to a year in jail. So let's see if someone recognizes him, if they come forward or he mentions it to some friends and they -- you know let's see.
ROBERTS: He's certainly not forthcoming, that's for sure.
CANDIOTTI: I mean we don't know really what he had in mind at this time, but it could have been innocent or not.
PHILLIPS: He may not even know that we're talking about him right now until he flips on the news and he sees the video.
CANDIOTTI: He may not but it just shows you how important it is that you go through security...
(CROSSTALK)
CANDIOTTI: ... because if not, we don't know what that guy had in mind. He may have had something with him and that's what TSA is all -- is very concerned about naturally. He may have had a weapon, who knows.
PHILLIPS: Thanks, Susan.
CANDIOTTI: You're welcome...
PHILLIPS: Well still ahead tonight, we'll go to Detroit where the suspect in the Christmas Day airliner attack is hours away from his first court appearance.
ROBERTS: And secret deals just now coming to light involving the financial system bailout and billions of your tax dollars. Wait until you hear this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: New disclosures tonight that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York pressured insurance giant AIG in 2008 to limit public disclosures about payments to major banks. This came at a time when billions in taxpayer money was being used to bail out Wall Street and at a time the New York Fed was headed by current Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. Lisa Sylvester has got the details for us.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Wall Street companies like Goldman Sachs were saved by a major financial rescue in 2008 by U.S. taxpayers. AIG was on the verge of going under and on the hook to pay billions to these financial firms for backing risky investments called credit default swaps that were quickly losing their value. The federal government assumed the obligation, shelling out $62 billion to Wall Street companies for these bad investments alone. Representative Darrell Issa, a critic of the Federal Reserve, says it was a sweetheart deal for the banks.
REP. DARRELL ISSA (R), CALIFORNIA: Ultimately, this was money that didn't need to be spent and didn't go toward stabilizing the market, it went toward stabilizing a financial community's key executives in and around New York that were friends of the people making a decision to pay 100 cents on the dollar.
SYLVESTER: Now according to e-mails recently obtained by Representative Issa's office, not only did the banks get paid back in full, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York at the time run by the now Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner kept that information from being disclosed to the public, referring to the debt obligations as synthetic.
A lawyer for the insurance giant AIG which owed the bank billions responded to a request from a New York Federal Reserve attorney that there be "no mention of the synthetics in connection with the transaction." The release of the e-mails comes at a time when Congress is debating financial regulation including whether the Federal Reserve is too vague, too secretive and too cozy with members of Wall Street. David John with the conservative Heritage Foundation says there shouldn't be a rush to judge what the Fed did or did not do given the context at the time.
DAVID JOHN, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: We have to remember looking back at it that the time that this all happened was a point when it looked like the financial system was melting, where every day you opened the papers or turned on the TV in fear that there would be some other major financial disaster.
SYLVESTER: The Federal Reserve Bank of New York issued a statement denying any wrongdoing, saying, quote, "All information was in fact disclosed that was required to be disclosed by the company. There was no effort to mislead the public."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SYLVESTER: And the Federal Reserve in New York adds that the decision to disclose was one for AIG to make. And as for Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Department says he recused himself from issues related to banks when he was nominated for Treasury secretary in late November of 2008, but even before then, a Treasury spokesman said he started, quote, "insulating himself from these issues." Still, the inspector general for the TARP program says it's launching its own investigation into all of this and last November the inspector general criticized the Federal Reserve in New York saying its strategy effectively transferred tens of billions of dollars of cash from the government to these banks -- John.
ROBERTS: One of several investigations we're likely to see in the near future -- Lisa Sylvester in Washington -- Lisa, thanks.
PHILLIPS: All right joining us now for more on Timothy Geithner and AIG is Douglas Holtz-Eakin of the Manhattan Institute. Douglas is the former director of the congressional budge office. So Doug, put it in perspective for us. How troubling is this?
DOUGLAS HOLTZ-EAKIN, MANHATTAN INSTITUTE: Well, this is a troubling story for the nation, certainly for the Obama administration and for Secretary Geithner. The public should be disturbed that there appears to be a deliberate effort to undermine the most basic transparency that taxpayers know what is being done with their dollars.
And the Obama administration has to be concerned that it feeds a perception their policies are more geared towards Wall Street than Main Street, and Secretary Geithner was, in fact, the chief oversight official at the Federal Reserve for large entities like Citigroup and now secretary of Treasury has to answer for both why they became so endangered and the kinds of steps that were taken at the time. So I think there is a lot to be looked at here, and we're going to hear a lot about it from Congress.
ROBERTS: Yes, Congressman Barney Frank has indicated that he will likely hold his own investigation into these hearings before his House Financial Services Committee. Doug, what is the Treasury secretary going to have to tell Congress about what went down a year ago?
HOLTZ-EAKIN: Well, I think what he's going to say is that, number one, all of this fits the letter of the law, and the problem with that is the letter of the law is written with private sector money in mind. What do you disclose about private investor's money? This is the taxpayers. It's a little different question. The second is I don't think you need to question the motivation of the Federal Reserve in this. They were deeply concerned about the collapse of the financial system. They wanted to keep AIG and other key components functioning and they took the steps they thought were the right ones at the moment.
PHILLIPS: OK, so this could be pretty damaging. I mean let's face it and this is not the first time he's been entwined in something. He had the issues of not paying his taxes. So at what point, Doug, do you get fired?
HOLTZ-EAKIN: A secretary of the Treasury serves the president as long as he can effectively push the president's agenda. And with each additional episode of this type, Secretary Geithner becomes less capable of doing that, and at some point the judgment is made that someone else could be more effective in that job.
ROBERTS: Now what about the cost to the taxpayer here, Doug? There are reports that at the time the Fed stepped in and said you are going to pay 100 percent on these credit default swaps and insurance policies that you've handed out here that AIG was negotiating for you know maybe 40 cents on the dollar to entities like Goldman Sachs. And so when the Fed comes in and says, no, pay back 100 percent with taxpayer money, how much is the American taxpayer out here?
HOLTZ-EAKIN: I think the American taxpayer should be concerned that money that was supposed to go in and fill clear losses was selectively put in and instead of filling only part of the loss, preferred customers got 100 percent of the dollar. That's a real problem and this is big money. I mean we put 60 billion in quickly, the total got to 180 billion, and then if you're paying 40 cents on the dollar, it doesn't look nearly as large.
ROBERTS: Right.
PHILLIPS: Bottom line taxpayers lose out on every level here, right, Doug?
HOLTZ-EAKIN: Absolutely. There's no question about that.
PHILLIPS: Wow, all right, well we'll follow and see what happens, Doug thanks.
HOLTZ-EAKIN: Thank you.
PHILLIPS: Coming up, a big day in court tomorrow for the suspect in the attempted Christmas Day airline bombing.
ROBERTS: And the record breaking cold, what we are in for as we head into this weekend. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Most of the country is bracing for another night of dangerously cold weather. Temperatures will be plunging to record lows.
PHILLIPS: The weather already is blamed for at least seven deaths. A pretty miserable mix of snow and ice and it stretching from the Midwest all the way to the Deep South and Chad Myers has been tracking it -- boy, for the past couple of days it's been busy.
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, it has been a long term event already and I don't see any end to it. I mean this could go on for another week before we finally see some jet stream movement off to the east, snowing now in Chicago. It was snowing in Atlanta for a while, but kind of that Atlanta snow where it can never really can stick anyway, a couple of showers off to the east, rain showers. Temperatures are cooling down, though. Look at this number -- look at theses numbers here -- in the single digits or below in this entire area there. Now I'm going to really scare you. I am going to get rid of this thing and show you the wind chill factor. Fargo, 29 below zero; Winnipeg, 30 below -- I mean you know what if the wind just blows right through your house at this point in time no matter how good your windows are it just feels cold. I was at my house my -- my -- my father-in-law's house in Cincinnati last week. We could sit in one room and watch the curtains blow in the other one, because the wind was blowing so hard.
Wichita, 10 below, Tulsa, two below zero, and Oklahoma City, four below right now -- it does warm up eventually, so there is some light at the end of the tunnel, but that tunnel is still a week away because another cold front comes down tonight, and another one comes down for the weekend. Here it is here -- here's Thursday, so we go for today and it slides down into Florida and it keeps right on going all the way to Cuba.
I mean this cold front will make its way all the way to Havana. When is the last time you heard that? This is just a front that we probably haven't seen in 15 years, I think, that it will make its way all the way down there and make the entire country stay below normal, 10 to 20, 30 degrees below normal for the next five days -- Kyra and John.
PHILLIPS: And I'm thinking about the farmers. I mean John Zarrella was out there, you know peeling oranges back saying hey, folks, we may not have these pretty soon and the cost of our orange juice and what do you think, Chad? I mean is it going to have a devastating effect on things we depend on and our farmers are already struggling?
MYERS: You know what, on Friday -- because this is in my head -- on Friday, eight pounds of strawberries wholesale in Florida was $14...
PHILLIPS: Oh my god...
MYERS: Today, $24...
PHILLIPS: Wow.
MYERS: So almost doubled in four days.
ROBERTS: Already going up. And Chad, you know we just had the Copenhagen Global Climate Conference, the controversy over those e- mails from the University of East Anglia, and the climate center there, got to be a lot of skeptics who were saying hey, whatever happened to this thing about global warming? It's pretty cold out there...
MYERS: Well it's cold outside somewhere, but it's also warm outside somewhere else. It's what goes up must come down. The jet stream goes all the way up into Alaska. It was warmer in Fairbanks this morning than it was in Atlanta.
PHILLIPS: Oh my gosh...
MYERS: So then it comes down like this and so the mass of the people that we see are here, and they're feeling the cold, but the people in the Pacific aren't feeling the warmth because there's not that many people there. But there's warm and there's cold, and just because we're feeling the cold doesn't mean that there's not record heat somewhere else, because there is.
ROBERTS: All right, Chad Myers putting it all into perspective for us tonight -- Chad, thanks.
MYERS: You're welcome.
ROBERTS: Still ahead, what's in store in court tomorrow for the suspect in the Christmas Day airliner attack?
PHILLIPS: And pros packing heat, the debate over athletes and guns and whether they really need that kind of personal protection.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: The suspect in the Christmas Day airliner attack is due to make his first appearance in court tomorrow in Detroit. As Deborah Feyerick reports now, a federal grand jury has indicted Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on six charges, including the attempted murder of all 289 people onboard that Northwest Airlines flight.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The smiling face of 23- year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is framed by the Islamist flag of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The group claims responsibility for the failed Christmas Day attack, which targeted a U.S. jetliner and which ultimately underscored serious flaws in U.S. airline security.
OBAMA: The system has failed in a potentially disastrous way.
FEYERICK: Authorities say the Nigerian graduate student smuggled the bomb on board the nine-hour flight from Amsterdam, hiding it in his underwear, attempting to detonate it on the plane's final approach to Detroit.
RICK NELSON, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: One thing Al Qaeda is very good at is recruiting and finding individuals that are susceptible to its radical ideology. They will be patient until they find the right individual that they feel has the access to be able to get on airliners to perpetrate an attack.
FEYERICK: Where and when Abdulmutallab became radicalized is still under investigation. But here is what authorities know so far -- Abdulmutallab applied for a multi-entry U.S. visa in London the summer of 2008 after graduating university there. Though he wanted to study in Cairo or Saudi Arabia, his parents sent him to Dubai.
In August, something changed. According to a family source, Abdulmutallab text messaged his parents to say he was leaving for Yemen to pursue the course of Islam. Two weeks before his flight from Amsterdam, Abdulmutallab was in Ghana where he allegedly paid $2,100 in cash for a round trip flight from Nigeria to Detroit.
He left Christmas Eve, transiting through Amsterdam, before flying to the U.S. with only a shoulder bag. When he was arrested, he allegedly told federal agents Yemen is where he got the device and instructions on how to use it.
Though his father did go to the U.S. embassy in Nigeria in November, fearing his son had come under radical influences, the information was not circulated among federal agencies, and Abdulmutallab was never put on a no-fly list.
MARK FALLON, SENIOR VP, THE SOUFAN GROUP: I think Al Qaeda has really done a phenomenal job at their psychological operations. I think that for their recruiting, they need to show some successes, and I think the fact that the disruption that they caused our system for them is a win, because it shows that the David can once again throw rocks at the Goliath here.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FEYERICK: Now Abdulmutallab has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction along with attempted destruction of that U.S. jetliner and the attempted murder of some 2909 people onboard that plane.
And John and Kyra, this is the first time Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has actually hit U.S. interests outside it's normal area of operations. And terror experts says it is in direct response to U.S. involvement in a strike against Al Qaeda elements in Yemen in mid- December.
Experts say they believe that this plane plot was well underway and operational. U.S. officials will not comment on that strike except to say that U.S. and Yemenis share intelligence. John, Kyra?
ROBERTS: And certainly operations have been stepped up against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula ever since this attack or the attempted attack. Deb Feyerick for us, thanks.
PHILLIPS: Joining us now, CNN national security contributor Fran Townsend, former Homeland Security adviser under President George W. Bush. Also with us, former Republican Senator Slade Gordon of Washington who was a member of the 9/11 Commission.
Senator let me start with you. Now, 9/11 showed us that we were not sharing information. This incident showed us that we were sharing information but not connecting the dots. So let me bring it back to the 9/11 commission, your commission, and the recommendations that were adopted. What happened to those?
FORMER SENATOR SLADE GORTON, (R) WASHINGTON: The 9/11 commission recommendations on ending the stovepipes on intelligence were pretty much adopted by the congress, and both administrations have done a reasonable job in seeing to it that the situation is better than it was then. But there were human failures here.
There were also failures of the attitude that the administration took toward things. And I focused just on this, that the fact that the father of this man came into our embassy in Lagos and said "my son is a danger" was not enough automatically to pull his visa and to put him on a no-fly list under the rules the administration had established.
What I liked about what the president said today as I heard him, in the future it will be. So this wasn't a failure to gather intelligence, it was only partly a failure to share intelligence. It was very much a failure in having standards that don't really apply to terrorism of the nature with which we're dealing.
ROBERTS: Fran, let's bring you in, because we were talking about this particular point the senator just made off camera. While the senator says the 9/11 commission regulations were adopted, are there fair questions out there as to whether those were fully implemented?
The National Counterterrorism Center, as we were talking about, was created for the specific purpose of integrating all of this intelligence, of connecting the dots, and doesn't appear to have done the job it was created for.
FRAN FRAGOS TOWNSEND, FORMER BUSH HOMELAND SECURITY ADVISER: John, I think that's right, and I think that some of the frustration you saw in the president and also in John Brennan -- remember, John Brennan earlier in his career was the director of the TTIC, Terrorism Threat Integration Center, which was the predecessor to the National Counterterrorism Center. And so he has a personal connection to that organization.
It was designed to connect the dots. The president has been very clear -- we gathered them, we shared them, but we didn't connect them.
Now, one of the issues is, we invested an awful lot of money and time in increasing collection. We have more human intelligence officers out there now.
But, you know, the problem is, with more information coming in, it means there are lots of dots, and making the difference between what's important, what's not, and prioritizing them is what didn't happen here.
But you're right, John, it seems to me that should have been done at the National Counterterrorism Center which was created to do the job.
PHILLIPS: Senator, you said something interesting about attitude, the right attitude wasn't taken. Do you feel that the president maybe took his attention off terrorism because he's been so overwhelmed with the economy, with two ongoing wars, with a lot of pressure within the first year of his presidency?
GORTON: With all the mutual criticism and antagonism between the Bush administration and the Obama administration, each of the presidents made, in my view, the same mistake. For the eight months up until 9/11, terrorism was not a high priority for George Bush. After, it was. And his actions were decisive.
For the first eight or nine months of the Obama administration, this was simply not a high priority. The president's eyes were on a different ball. Now it is.
I liked his response today. I don't think it went far enough. I think there were at least two major omissions in it, but what he did say and the changes he did say that we're going to make are the right ones.
ROBERTS: Let me bring Fran in on the particular point, again, that the senator made. Fran, is this an Obama problem? Did the whole culture of intelligence gathering and integration change over the last 11 months, or was this culture in place previously? You know, these senators may have different leaders, but they are established bureaucracies.
TOWNSEND: Actually, John, even the National Counterterrorism Center is a good example. Michael Leiter, who is the director there, who was a Bush administration appointee. He's one of the few holdovers of the Obama administration.
John Brennan worked as a career officer in the Bush administration and he's now the closest counterterrorism adviser. So many of the people and many of the policies remain the same.
ROBERTS: So is it fair to say this administration took its eye off the ball or were these ingrained, institutional problems?
TOWNSEND: I think what you heard the president say, and I agree with him, these are systemic failures. It was something we battled when I was in the Bush administration.
It's obviously something we have to continue battling every day in reminding the bureaucracy that just because we haven't had an attack in 8.5 years, we don't take anything for granted and we have to treat every day like it's the first day in the war.
PHILLIPS: Senator Gordon, Fran Townsend, thank you for your time.
TOWNSEND: Thank you.
PHILLIPS: Coming up on Campbell Brown at 8:00 p.m. eastern, inner peace at a price. We're continuing my special investigation into a nationwide chain of yoga centers. Some former members accuse it of being a cult. One claims the founder sexually assaulted her. Dahn Yoga and its founder deny it all.
Now part three investigates the philosophy behind it's wellness centers, a technique called "brainwave vibration." Here's a preview.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIPS: It's promoted as "brainwave vibration," pouring energy into your brain with exercises like this. Its creator is a Korean businessman named Ilchie Lee, a savior to thousands of believers who have signed on to his franchise, Dahn Yoga.
These exercises, Dahn Yoga says, can lead to improved health and even control disease.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Now the final part of my investigation on Campbell Brown tonight, 8:00 p.m. eastern.
ROBERTS: I'm looking forward to that. It's been a really, really great series.
Coming up tonight, Washington Wizards star Gilbert Arenas suspended for bringing guns to the locker room. We'll examine why guns are so appealing to professional athletes.
PHILLIPS: And tweeting and driving -- one company is making that possible, but is it safe? That story is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Ford Motors today at the consumer electronics show unveiled a new package of technology for some of its vehicles. The system integrates navigation, entertainment, email, even your Twitter account with your car. As Casey Wian tells us, the big question now is, is it safe?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ford is promising a major shift in the way drivers interact with their cars.
COSSACK: Introducing My Ford Touch, driver-connect technology.
WIAN: This goes way beyond a Bluetooth phone or a navigation system. Later this year, some Fords will be equipped with a dizzying array of touch screens, steering wheel mounted controls, and voice recognition technology allowing drivers to do everything from changing the lights of their cup holder to having the car read them incoming email or tweets.
But what will this technology offered by a growing number of car manufacturers do for highway safety? Some experts say you might as well let drivers drink a six-pack.
NICHOLAS ASHFORD, MIT TECHNOLOGY AND LAW PROGRAM: I think it's wrongheaded. Interactive technology does focus attention away from the major task, which is maneuvering the automobile in a safe and prudent manner. The record is clear on cell phones. People who use cell phones with or without hands free have accident records equivalent to that of being legally drunk.
WIAN: Ford's promotional material stress that "driving while distracted can result in loss of vehicle control."
A company spokesman says Ford's in-car technology is compliant with all industry guidelines on distracted driving and will actually enable drivers to be safer than if they were trying to operate hand- held MP3 players, cell phones, or other devices.
COSSACK: We think technology is hands-free, and we think that's what the future of safety holds. It's not possible to type or text into a Ford product. You can only receive text messages and direct audibly from the entertainment speakers.
WIAN: Some features, such as the web browser, will be disabled while the car is in motion, and there are no plans to allow outgoing tweets.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WIAN: And 19 states now have ban on texting while driving, while six states prohibit hand-held cell phone use. Next week, the U.S. Transportation Department says it plans a major announcement about future efforts to stop distracted driving. John?
ROBERTS: So Casey, they say it keeps your hands where they're supposed to be, but what about your brain?
(LAUGHTER)
WIAN: And that's the big problem that safety experts say, that even talking on a hands-free cell phone or doing anything besides driving your car is a distraction and very dangerous.
The automakers say the devices they're offering now are safer than what a lot of drivers are doing, which is looking down at those MP3 players or their cell phones or texting. We still see that on the streets of Los Angeles all the time even though it's illegal in California.
PHILLIPS: It happens illegally right here with this guy all the time, Casey.
ROBERTS: What are you talking about?
PHILLIPS: Mr. Distraction.
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: Excuse me, but who is the one that wants to drive all the time?
PHILLIPS: OK. Casey, it's good see you.
WIAN: I think I'll stay out of that one.
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: Good idea, Casey. PHILLIPS: We're focusing now, we are not distracted. We're talking about what's coming up.
An NBA player actually suspended for pulling a gun in a locker room. Was it an isolated incident or just part of the professional sports culture? We'll have that coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Washington Wizards all star Gilbert Arenas is on the sidelines tonight. The NBA suspended him indefinitely without pay for brandishing a gun in the team's locker room.
Arenas admitted he had the gun, saying he was simply playing a joke on a teammate. He has since apologized for actions. Arenas could be in more trouble than just the suspension, though. Local and federal law enforcement are both investigating the incident.
Some professional athletes consider themselves potential targets and carry weapons to protect themselves, but sometimes carrying a weapon can end up causing trouble for athletes. In 2008 pro football player Plaxico Burris accidentally shot himself in the leg with a gun he was carrying at a nightclub. He is now serving a two-year sentence after pleading guilty to weapons charges.
PHILLIPS: Joining us now with more on athletes and guns, Roger Cossack, ESPN legal analyst, we miss him here at CNN, and Mike Wise, sports columnist for "Washington Post." Mike, glad you could make it.
Roger, let's go ahead and start with you. What happened to the days of the Harlem Globe Trotters? They were so clean cut, no tattoos, so well behaved. There were moral clauses here I thought these guys had to follow and character training they had in the NBA.
ROGER COSSACK, ESPN LEGAL ANALYST: Kyra, one of my fondest memories as a father is taking my son to see the Harlem Globe Trotter. And so you bring up something that's a wonderful example. And you're right, it seems like those days are gone.
It terms of Arenas, it's a little unclear as to the facts. They seem to change a little bit on a daily basis. But the idea of having guns in a locker room at any time is obviously something that you shouldn't do.
And I think probably his attitude and, of course, that stupid, stupid, stupid thing that he did of pretending it was kind of funny and holding his fingers like they were guns and pretending to shoot his teammates, that just -- I mean, it violates the...
PHILLIPS: It's arrogant. The idiot test, there you go.
ROBERTS: Mike Wise, you've been following this story very, very closely. You cover sports in Washington all the time. What do you think is going on here?
MIKE WISE, "WASHINGTON POST" SPORTS COLUMNIST: Well, it's really sad for me to see Gilbert Arenas, a guy I've gotten to know over the years, one of the great redemption stories of all time in the NBA, freefall into what looks like -- I don't want to say in the abyss of his career and it's over, but I will say this, that bringing guns into the locker room not only -- and into any American workplace, for that matter, is going to get you in trouble.
Beyond that, four years ago, John and Kyra, this guy was the most popular player in town. He was bigger than any Redskins player, any hockey player. And now to see the town turn against him because of this, it's a shame on so many levels.
PHILLIPS: You've gotten to know him, so let me follow-up with you then on the point, that is there this attitude they need to keep an image, that for some reason, you know, the guys back home want to see, even though they've made it to the big-time, they're still tough? They can still handle themselves, and, you know, they're still one of them?
WISE: Well, that's a very good point. You see a lot of faux gangsters I call them in the NBA and other elite sports where guys who weren't even raised in the hood all of a sudden want to become 50 cent for better or worse reference.
PHILLIPS: You got to say it right. It's 50 cent.
WISE: Yes, Curtis Jackson.
But the bottom line is, Gilbert Arenas wasn't that guy. He's never been that guy. He's a guy with no malice, no hate in his heart. He's a guy that takes practical jokes to the nth power, and this one clearly obliterated all the lines of good taste and decency and broke laws.
ROBERTS: Well, Roger, what about this idea that some of these pro athletes, particularly in basketball and football, feel like they could be targets and that they need to arm themselves for self- protection?
Look at what happened to Sean Taylor, a Washington Redskins player that was gunned down in a home invasion robbery in his house in Miami. Richard Collier of the Jacksonville Jaguars lost both of his legs, ended his career after he was shot 14 times.
They have a sense that people because of who they are and the fact they go from making very little money to a lot of money are targets of criminals who would like to get what they've got.
COSSACK: I think that's certainly the argument that some of them would make, but I just don't think that argument holds up. You know, we live, yes, in a violent world, and certainly some of us are more targets than others, and people like wealthy basketball players can argue they need these guns.
But in fact, I don't think they need these guns. And there's laws that prohibit you from walking around carrying these guns. Just until recently it was you could even own a gun in Washington, D.C., and that's because of the Supreme Court decision last year. But it's clear you can't walk around with a gun unless you have it registered.
And look, everybody knows you shouldn't have guns, as Mike so aptly put it, in any workplace. So that whole idea that I walk around with a gun in my pocket because I'm a target, you know, I mean, it sounds great, sounds great, not so good.
PHILLIPS: So Mike, is this going to set a precedent? Because, let's be honest here, a lot of athletes that make a lot of money many a times are given a pass or two.
And in July, 2008, he signed a six-year deal, $111 million contract. I mean, that's pretty huge, and basically the message here is, I done care how great you are, how much money you make, you're a bad boy, you're out.
WISE: Well, that's -- if David Stern did anything yesterday by suspending Gilbert Arenas indefinitely, he put him out of his misery in which he couldn't make any remarks that were going to embarrass himself, the team, or the organization at that point, and the league, for that matter.
I don't know if athletes are going to learn from this. Plaxico Burris was the toast of New York. He won a Super bowl. And less than a year later he's up on gun charges because he shot himself in a club. And so will things change? Hope so, but based on recent actions I don't know. I really, I think it's an individual case.
ROBERTS: We'll see where this goes. Mike Wise of "Washington Post," roger Cossack, great to catch up with you tonight.
PHILLIPS: Thanks, guys.
WISE: Thank you.
COSSACK: Thank you.
ROBERTS: And coming up at the top of the hour, Campbell Brown and her program. She's here now with a preview. Hi, Campbell.
CAMPBELL BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, there, John. At the top of the hour we are going to continue CNN's breaking news coverage digging into the mistakes that kept U.S. intelligence agencies from uncovering the airliner bomber plot.
Also, tonight our special investigation of Dahn Yoga, which Kyra has been spearheading. It's, of course, this nationwide chain of yoga and wellness centers. Some charging it is a cult. Dahn Yoga says no, but some ex-employees say yes, and they claim it all comes down to money. We're going to have that story for you as well, John.
ROBERTS: Campbell, see you soon, in about two and a half minutes.
PHILLIPS: We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIPS: Well, a Kentucky Powerball player took a gamble Christmas Eve, and he won by mistake.
ROBERTS: The payoff, $128 million. Rob Anderson wanted to buy three separate lottery tickets to giveaway at stocking counters. But the clerk at the lottery counter goofed and printed the three sets of numbers on a single ticket.
PHILLIPS: And so Anderson went on to buy three more tickets to give away to his friends. Instead of throwing away the mistakenly printed ticket, Anderson decided to keep it for himself. Good thinking, because it happened to have the winning numbers.
ROBERTS: There you go.
(CROSSTALK)
ROBERTS: Thanks for being with us tonight. Please join us again tomorrow.
PHILLIPS: Campbell Brown up next.
