In Counterterrorism, Competence Is Better Than Luck

On Aug. 6, 2001, President George W. Bush, while vacationing at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, famously received a CIA briefing headlined "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."

Meanwhile, in Arizona and Minnesota, FBI agents were tracking reports that terrorists were training at U.S. flight schools. Nobody ever put two and two together.

Much was made of this failure by the 9/11 Investigation Commission. A new clichŽ was born, badly overused by Democrats eager to show that U.S. intelligence agencies had failed to "connect the dots" among hints received by various intelligence agencies that a major terrorist attack was being planned.

A new dot-connecting agency was formed in 2004, the National Counterterrorism Center, the mission of which was to coordinate information among the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agencies and the rest of the vast U.S. intelligence apparatus.

In the wake of the failed Christmas Day bomb plot on a U.S.-bound airliner, new questions are being asked about how well the NCTC and intelligence agencies did their jobs.

Did they know that the British government had rejected an application for a new student visa from Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian accused in the bombing attempt?

What did the NCTC do after the NSA notified it that the NSA had intercepted cell phone communications among al-Qaida leaders in Yemen discussing a bombing plot involving a Nigerian man?

What happened after the NCTC was notified that Mr. Abdulmutallab's father, a respected Nigerian banker, had notified Nigerian and American officials that his son had become radicalized by Muslim extremists in Yemen? The CIA began compiling a dossier on the young man, but NCTC analysts decided that there was not enough specific threat information about him to put him on a special watch list.

What happened at the Department of Homeland Security when it was informed that someone had paid cash for Mr.

Abdulmutallab's ticket and that he had not checked any luggage?

A better security system would have cross-analyzed all this data and flashed warning lights before he boarded a Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit in Amsterdam. He might have been patted down or run through explosives-detecting security machines.

This kind of system should be well within the technological capabilities of a nation that can listen to cell phone calls in Yemen. As we've seen from the continued failure of bank and mortgage regulators, President Barack Obama, who ran on a promise of restoring America's faith in the competence of its government, still has a lot of work to do.

There are also policy questions to answer: What should be the policy for placing someone on the "No Fly" list? Should sketchy rumors about someone's friends and associates should be enough? How do you balance "better safe than sorry" against the risk of 21st-century McCarthyism?

Republicans are taking great delight in turning the connect-the-dots argument on a Democratic administration. Former Vice President Dick Cheney, as usual, is at the forefront, accusing Mr. Obama of acting as if the United States isn't at war. This from the man who led the charge away from al-Qaida and into Iraq, thus bringing al-Qaida into Iraq and further inflaming the Arab world.

In addition to his other qualities, Mr. Obama has been lucky. He's lucky to have the reckless Dick Cheney and the feckless Farouk Abdulmutallab as enemies.

In counterterrorism, luck is good. Competence is better.

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