Over the weekend, Rep. Jane Harman issued a statement that has been widely quoted on the attempted terror attack on Christmas Day.In it, she says she was briefed on "strong suggestions of a Yemen-al Qaeda connection" to the thwarted attack. She goes on to warn that Yemen could be the next FATA -- an acronym for the lawless region of Pakistan that runs along the Afghan border.
In a similar vein, Sen. Joe Lieberman said this yesterday on Fox News Sunday:
I leave you with this thought that somebody in our government said to me in the Sana'a, the capital of Yemen. Iraq was yesterday's war. Afghanistan is today's war. If we don't act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow's war. That's the danger we face.Harman's full statement is after the jump.
Washington, DC
- Following a
briefing by a senior government official, Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-Venice)
today issued the following statement regarding the attempted terrorist attack on
board Northwest Airlines Flight 253 above Detroit.
"This is a very
serious matter and I applaud Chairman Thompson for arranging a prompt briefing
for Members of our Committee this afternoon.
The facts are
still emerging, but there are strong suggestions of a Yemen-al Qaeda connection
and an intent to blow up the plane over US airspace.
I have warned
for some time that Yemen is the next F.A.T.A. and was just last month denied
access to Yemen by its government while visiting the region with other Members
of Congress. Americans need to understand that the terror threat is global and
al Qaeda's tradecraft is sophisticated and ever-evolving. We must adapt our
airport screening and detection methods to stay ahead of the threat and
travelers should be prepared to accept additional inconvenience in order to stay
safe. Clearly, a screening failure occurred in this case, and while the
technology does exist to detect such threats it is not fully deployed. The
intelligence on Mr. Abdulmullatab did not result in putting him on a "no fly"
list, a process which must be tightened. But civil liberties matter, and we
must stay mindful that an overreaction has the potential to overwhelm the system
and fail to make us more safe.
Kudos to the
passengers on Flight 253 for their enormous courage and
effectiveness."
Leave a comment