Counterterror watchdog Michael Leiter wasn’t AWOL. He got the okay from his White House bosses to take a six-day ski vacation right after the Christmas Day bomber nearly blew up an airliner. They even said he deserved it.
White House defends NCTC head Michael Leiter: We said he could go on vacation after attack
Counterterror watchdog Michael Leiter wasn't AWOL. He got the okay from his White House bosses to take a six-day ski vacation right after the Christmas Day bomber nearly blew up an airliner.
They even said he deserved it.
President Obama's top counterterror adviser, John Brennan, said Thursday he gave Leiter the green light to head for the slopes. At the time, Leiter's National Counterterrorism Center was already facing scrutiny for missed red flags in the plot against Northwest Flight 253.
"Mike Leiter raised with me that he was in fact scheduled to go on leave to meet his son, and he asked me whether or not he should cancel that trip," the feisty Brennan explained.
"And I said, 'Mike, no, you deserve this vacation. You need to be with your son.'"
The Daily News reported Leiter's ski trip yesterday. Career counterterror officials said eyebrows were raised when he was absent for days after Christmas.
Brennan said Leiter assured him deputies were in place to lead the National Counterterrorism Center during the unfolding crisis after the first attempted Al Qaeda attack on a plane over U.S. soil since 9/11.
A White House report on the Nigerian terror suspect's plot said the primary agency at fault was Leiter's NCTC. The center was created in 2004 to connect dots on threats - but it didn't with Abdulmutallab and his handlers from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
"I told the President today I let him down," Brennan said.
The retired CIA officer's standup performance capped a frenzied day of damage control for embattled ex-Navy pilot and prosecutor Leiter, with Obama aides rushing to defend him.
In his remarks, Obama did not acknowledge that some of his top security officials weren't at their posts in the capital after the Christmas incident.
Instead, he focused on how they blew chances to thwart a catastrophic terror attack that failed only because of dumb luck.
Obama said he was "less interested in passing out blame" than in correcting the failure to realize the threat posed by the suspect - primarily the NCTC's mission.
"It appears that this incident was not the fault of a single individual or organization, but rather a systemic failure across organizations and agencies," Obama said.
National Security Council chief of staff Denis McDonough said Leiter was on the job Dec. 25 when Abdulmutallab tried to detonate a bomb in his underwear. Leiter was "intimately involved" in responding to the attempt and spent the day coordinating intelligence and briefing lawmakers , McDonough said.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) praised Leiter - who briefed her on Christmas Day before he left town - as "one of the bright lights" in intelligence.
Other lawmakers weren't so sanguine. "The system failed," said Rep. Jose Serrano (D-Bronx), who serves on a homeland-security subcommittee.
"I'm not saying a guy going on vacation, another guy being on a cell phone [at Newark Airport] may not be issues we have to deal with," he added. "But let's focus primarily on this whole operation."
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