Even the New York Times has come around to the idea that the Christmas Day underwear bomber could have been stopped:
Counterterrorism officials assumed that the militants were not sophisticated or ambitious enough to send [Yemeni al Qaeda] operatives into the United States. And no one shifted more intelligence analysts to the task, so that they could have supported the military assaults by Yemen while also scrutinizing all incoming tips for hints about future attacks against Americans, one administration official said.
So, though intelligence analysts had enough information in those days before Christmas to block the suicide bomber on the Northwest flight, they did not act.
The system did not work. And unless something changes, the system for thwarting future terrorist activity will continue to fail.
