Nice to see Obama and Brown getting along so well. Talk about finger pointing!

It is pretty clear that the near disaster of Flight 253 has spilled over
into many arenas. Obama is doing damage control on so many fronts his
administration is looking completely and totally incompetent, which it is.
The English people have had quite enough of Brown.This is just icing
on the cake as far as his standing with the English people goes. Like he
had much popularity left. There are people in the Obama house that need
to go after this almost successful terrorist attack.



By TOM NEWTON DUNN

Political Editor

Published: 05 Jan 2010

An embarrassing row has broken out between Downing Street and the White House over what MI5 told the US about the Detroit bomber.

PM Gordon Brown's spokesman yesterday insisted that the Security Service told American officials that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had extremist links.

But that has left President Barack Obama's officials furious, saying Number 10 "have made a mistake" and that no such intelligence was passed on by Britain before the thwarted Christmas attack.

The news comes as President Obama prepares to unveil plans aimed at preventing future attacks.

He is set to outline a series of changes related to the "watch lists" of terrorism suspects.

The allegation that the US failed to act on British information could embarrass President Obama — who is already under fire from critics for failing to stop the bomber.

Brit officials have reportedly backed claims that there was a misunderstanding about what Downing Street had said and that it could further damage the already strained relations between Downing Street and the White House after the early release of the Lockerbie bomber.

The Prime Minister's office rarely comments on intelligence matters and the move could be seen as retaliation to criticism from US figures who claimed Britain nurtured Islamic extremism.

At first it was thought that MI5 had only managed to get hold of limited information on Abdulmutallab and had therefore not told the US.

But in an official briefing, the PM's spokesman said that British intelligence WAS given to the Americans.

He said: "Clearly there was security information about this individual's activities and that was information that was shared with the US authorities. That is the key point."

The spokesman added: "We are pretty certain that he was radicalised outside the UK. He left the UK in October 2008.

"But it is also clear that while he was here he was attempting to make contact with people and that is the intelligence we were able to secure from the intelligence services."

Last night, a Downing Street spokesman added: "We do routinely share large quantities of intelligence with the US on a two-way basis so we can build up a picture of the potential threats we face.


"In regard to the Detroit bomber, the UK and US had gathered partial information and this had been shared in the usual way. Since the incident, we have built up a fuller picture.

"There is no suggestion that the US did not act on intelligence information that they received from the UK."

Questions will be asked about how much MI5 knew about Abdulmutallab and whether the information was correctly handled.

Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian, studied at University College London between 2005 and 2008. He then left the country and was thought to have travelled to Yemen.

He attempted to detonate a bomb hidden in his underwear on Northwest Airlines flight 253 to Detroit on Christmas Day.

UK Sun

Hat tip Bare Naked Islam