Security Meeting Wrap Up

President Obama sought to ensure Americans that the government is doing all it can to avoid another attempted terror plot on a U.S. airline. The president admit there was enough information to foil the failed attack on Christmas day, but that intelligence agencies "failed to connect those dots." The red flags include intelligence that the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, traveled to Yemen.  Reiterating what his press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters earlier in the day, Mr. Obama said that terror suspects from the detention center at Guantanamo Bay would not be sent to Yemen anytime in the near future. However, the president did insist that the administration will still move to close Gitmo.

The president spoke to cameras after a 90 minute meeting in which he heard from top officials representing various security agencies. An administration official says there was no finger pointing in the meeting, adding that individual agency leaders took responsibility for failures at their organizations.  The president is quoted as telling participants that the potential attack was averted by "brave individuals" and not a well-working system. He also acknowledged that there was a "screw up" but that he would not tolerate an inter-agency blame game.