Many have made much about the reported “systemic failures” in our Intelligence communities and have focused on the Watch Lists. So, now we are “moving swiftly” to correct the Intelligence failures that allowed the Christmas Day bomber to get on a U.S. air carrier to fly to America.
One of the excuses that try to explain how the terrorist was not on a No Fly List on the NW Flt 253 was that someone misspelled Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s name. Anyone with a slight knowledge of the Arab language knows that you can spell Arabic names in many different ways. Arabic uses an alphabet that anyone can learn in just a couple weeks. But the alphabet has only three vowels. An Arabic speaker has to figure out the vowels by themselves based on a knowledge of vocabulary and understanding of the phrase. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab can be spelled a number of different ways.
The so called technical reforms “designed to better track suspected terrorist” had better start with a realization that spelling Arabic names is an imperfect science and all the Watch Lists must conside variations.
According to the Associated Press here are the Watch Lists:
- Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) database: over 550.000 individuals.
- The Consolidated Terrorist Watch List (CTWL): about 400,000 individuals.
- Selectee Lists: a subset of the Watch Lists with about 14,000 individuals.
- No-fly Lists: also, a subset of the Watch List with 3,400 individuals.
The Administration briefers after the President said that they would strengthen the Intelligence system.
With the Attorney General saying he is going to proscute CIA officials and the Special Operations Forces who catch the terrorist facing courts-martial, it will be just short of a miracle if we can do anything to strengthen the Intelligence system.
See Poliquicks.com: The 8 Tribes of Intelligence, Jan 7. 2010.
