RSS Feed for This PostCurrent Article

Larry Johnson Appears on Larry King Live

By Bronwyn's Harbor on December 31, 2009 at 1:15 AM in Current Affairs


LARRY JOHNSON: “You look at the fact that he bought a ticket going one way with cash with no luggage and you’re going to Detroit in December without a winter coat?”

Here is the video of the segment of CNN’s Larry King Live featuring Larry Johnson and longtime friend Tyler Drumheller:

Special thanks to C.S. for diligently taping and uploading these videos of Larry Johnson’s many media appearances in the past four days. And here’s the transcript of that segment:

LARRY KING: Joining us now is Tyler Drumheller, former CIA official, served the agency for more than 25 years. He was the division chief for the director of operations in Europe, author of the book “On the Brink: An Insiders Account of How the White House Compromised American Intelligence.”

Also with us is Larry Johnson, he served as deputy director of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Counterterrorism. He’s a former CIA analyst and co-founder and CEO of Berg Associates. First, our condolences, Tyler and Larry, eight Americans killed in Afghanistan’s suicide bombings, all believed to be CIA employees. Do you have a comment on that, Tyler?

TYLER DRUMHELLER, FORMER CIA OFFICIAL: Yes, I just heard that just now and it just underlines the world we live in and the sacrifices that the officers of the CIA along with the military of the CIA make in these peoples really is heart breaking. My thoughts go that to their family, obviously.

KING: Larry?

LARRY JOHNSON, FORMER CIA ANALYST: It’s a no-win situation, you know, the CIA gets kicked around for not connecting dots and then you’ve got men and women out there on the front lines getting killed. The eight that lost their lives, this is one of the largest losses of lives of CIA employees in the last 30 years.

KING: The CIA is rejecting accusations that it failed to properly share vital intelligence on the Christmas day terror suspect. Do you buy that? They’re denying it, Tyler.

DRUMHELLER: Yes, I think they did share. The problem here is that the system that was set up by the Reform Act in 2004, Intelligence Reform Act in 2004 set this up. This was almost an inevitable with the expansion of the intelligence community, the bureaucracy here in Washington that it was almost inevitable that something like this was going to happen.

The CIA station in Lagos collected this, they sent it in. The information comes from the field, it goes to all — it goes automatically to the National Counterterrorism Center, to the CIA, to the White House, all these people get it.

The problem is they have broken the link between the analytical process and the operators in the field. So the people who are analyzing here, many of them are young contractors working at the counterterrorism center don’t have the experience and don’t have the grasp of this to go back to the station and ask the second question. The station doesn’t have the contact to specific analysts to go, to follow up on it and see if what they have sent it in has been followed up on. So they’ve got — the real question here is the bill for the future, to make it smaller, better staffed and more efficient.

KING: We keep hearing, Larry, about a failure to connect the dots. Based on what you know, are we connecting the dots?

JOHNSON: Yes, we are. And I think that is an outrageous charge and really it’s not correct. I’ve worked in intelligence now for 25 years. I still hold clearances. I still work both with intelligence analysts and military operators.

And this information was getting its way through the system. The reality Larry is the failure wasn’t on the intelligence side. The failure was at the airport. Ten years ago, you would profiled this individual. And by profiling, I don’t mean you look at the race, ethnicity, size of his body. You look at the fact that he bought a ticket going one way with cash with no luggage and you’re going to Detroit in December without a winter coat? That immediately 10 years ago would have forced the airline to pull him aside and say, OK, what’s up and start looking at him and maybe suggest him to some very specific training with some trace detectors. That could have been done. It wasn’t.

So yes, it’s unfortunate that the information hadn’t become instantaneous. But what’s going to happen out of this — if we go this route, the critics will say, oh, you didn’t connect the dots, it is going to create from the analysts standpoint a reaction where everything is going to come to the top. You are going to have such a blizzard of information that nobody will be able to actually see the real threats from — there are hundreds of bogus threats that come through every day.

And it’s sometimes only after the fact — when this guy was identified firmly as having said, you know, I’m going to blow up a plane, then everyone started going through the files. If his father had gone to the embassy and said look, my son has got exploding underwear, he’s going to fly and try to blow up a brain at Detroit, if the CIA had that information yes, they should be excoriated. But I guarantee you, they did not have that kind of information.

KING: We are going to have you both back very soon. Thank you Tyler and Larry, happy New Year.

DRUMHELLER: Thank you, Larry.

JOHNSON: Thank you, Larry.

  • Pingback: VIDEO UPDATE: WSJ and CNN report 8 US civilians killed in suicide bombing at US facility in Afghanistan : NO QUARTER

  • Pingback: Larry Johnson To Be on “Larry King Live” Tonight [UPDATES] : NO QUARTER

  • TeakWoodKite

    Mr. Johnson, it never occured to me until you mentioned it, that the “Under wear Jhadist” did not have a winter coat. Never mind the cash one way ticket no luggage etc. That alone should have caused a second look.

    It reminds me of the French assult on Fort Huron…trench warfare, throwing body after body at the line, slowly day by day, digging trenches and bring the cannon fire ever closer. The repeated attempts at getting just one of these shitheads on board an inbound flight indicates that a war of attrition is afoot against the front line security apparatus and the odds are not in the “British’s” favor, or ours.

  • Bronwyn

    It didn’t occur to me either.  When Larry said that, it was an “AHA!” moment for me.  And as Larry rightly inferred, this was the duty of the airport and aircraft personnel to pick up.  

  • Clara

    As for the airline personnel not seeing all those waving red flags, is there anything further being looked at with regard to the older Indian gentleman who was observed trying to help Boy Bomber get on the plane? 

  • I’m a Linda too

    Yep, those damn scapegoats, the CIA.  Nicely done sir.

    What are the orders from the top?

    Like I said and is becoming clear.  Obama wants to be nice to the Muslim community and thought his presence would by him security.  Most of us in the real world knew this to not be so and that he would put us in a dangerous place.

    Too many warning signs on too many inciidents.  Not acting on the informaiton they do have.  That seems to be the problem.

  • Nellie

    Larry,

    I first heard the story on BBC World News this morning. Once they mentioned that some of those killed were CIA Contractors, my first thoughts were for you and your associates at B.E.R.G.

    I am thnakful you are here stateside, and pray that you will continue to get FACTS and Common Sense out via media, who it seems, is finally recognizing what a valuabke resource you and yours are to the security of this country and its citizens.

    Just a simple heartfelt Thank You for all you do to keep things grounded in solid reality and pragmatizm.

  • TeakWoodKite

    It gives “fruit of the loom” a bad name. At least the tard won’t be reproducing anytime soon.

    @Bronwyn I have attempted to email you at the email linked to your byline, but each time it iswas returned.

  • I’m a Linda too

    I didn’t know that he didn’t have one.  That just gets added to an already nice list, doesn’t it?

    I’m still curious why we aren’t hearing about the 2 lawyers on the plane that saw him arrive at check point and said he didn’t have a passport and a well dressed man who was supposedly assisting him was playing on known sympthies by claiming he was from Sudan and didn’t have a passport “and that he knows they have been allowed to board under these conditions before”.  They sent them to their boss, but obviously they were then allowed on and it surely wasn’t because he miraculously found a passport.

    It seems they worked hard to ignore all realities.

  • Objective Analysis

    Larry, kudos for you for giving COMMON PRACTICAL SENSE on national security.  Obviously it is lacking in this Administration and definitely at the airports.

    Thank you for going on CNN and at least shedding light to the manly Obots who watch.  It is refreshing to hear a sane point of view.

  • stodghie

    excellent job larry! and let me thank king for having these two intelligent commenters on his program as well.

  • Anonymous

    Larry,

    What you are expecting is simply unrealistic? You expect someone to look at these people this close and then be put through some multi-million dollar screening equipment that may or may not find a bomb in a foreign country like Nigeria? Will never happen.

    The problem is foreign airports. It is unclear to me that he even went through security again in Amsterdam. It may have been a straight connecting flight from Nigeria. So you expect this level of security at the Nigerian airport? For a slight to Amersterdam. Impossible. And there is likely no way the U.S. government will be able to enforce this level of security and force the acquisition of millions of dollars of new scanning equipment in countries like Nigeria or even second and third tier airports in Europe.

    One other element that played into this. If you have ever been to Nigeria you would know there is a huge class structure in society. The people that run security at their airports are generally in the lower class. This bomber was in the upper class. It would have been very doubtful that these security people would have intensely questioned this upper classs guy or pulled him over for some special screening.