MICHELE NORRIS, host:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Michele Norris.
MELISSA BLOCK, host:
And I'm Melissa Block.
President Obama said today the U.S. government has to do a better job of detecting and disrupting terrorist plots, and must act with utmost urgency. He spoke after meeting with intelligence and security advisers in the White House Situation Room. They reviewed the case of the young Nigerian man who was allowed to board a Northwest Airlines plane on Christmas Day, carrying potentially deadly explosives. The president says it's his job to find out how that happened, and to prevent it from happening in the future.
NPR White House correspondent Scott Horsley joins us now. And Scott, the president says intelligence agencies had bits and pieces of information - red flags, he called them - that should have kept the suspected bomber off this airplane. What went wrong?
SCOTT HORSLEY: That's right, Melissa. We've been learning more about those bits and pieces. The government knew, for example, that the Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had traveled to Yemen and joined up with extremists. The government knew that Yemeni forces were plotting an attack in the U.S. and that they were working with a Nigerian. The bottom line, Mr. Obama said, is the government had the information it needed to disrupt this plot, but didn't connect the dots.
President BARACK OBAMA: This was not a failure to collect intelligence. It was a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence that we already had. The information was there, agencies and analysts who needed it had access to it, and our professionals were trained to look for it and to bring it all together.
BLOCK: So the president there, talking about shortcomings. Is the conclusion that anyone will be fired for what happened here?
HORSLEY: The White House dodged that question today. What Mr. Obama has said is that he wants to both support intelligence agencies and also hold them accountable. He has ordered the agency heads to recommend fixes for these shortcomings right away, this week, and to put those fixes into place. He says the U.S. has to do better because American lives are on the line.
BLOCK: And these fixes - part of that is beefing up airport security. Some of that is supposed to be happening already. What are you hearing about how that's working?
HORSLEY: Well, just yesterday, the TSA ordered additional screening for anyone traveling to the U.S. who is either carrying a passport from, or passing through, any one of 14 countries, including Yemen, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, others. The idea is that those passengers should get extra scrutiny, maybe pat-downs, maybe a hand search of their luggage - in some cases, full-body scans.
Enforcement, so far, appears to be uneven. But Homeland Security officials are on the road this week. They've gone to other countries to explain these rules to foreign airport officials. Now, some folks say this is a particularly blunt instrument and will wind up causing a lot of inconvenience for people that the U.S. really doesn't have anything to fear from.
BLOCK: Scott, Republicans - some Republicans have been using this incident to once more call on the administration not to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. The president responded to that today as well.
HORSLEY: He did. President Obama is standing by his pledge to close Guantanamo. The administration has argued for a long time that the prison camp in Cuba has served as an effective recruiting tool for al-Qaida and for others. The administration did, however, say today that it will not be sending any Guantanamo detainees to Yemen, for the time being.
Now, a lot of the remaining prisoners at Guantanamo are from Yemen. But the situation on the ground, in that poor country on the Arabian Peninsula, is just seen as too unstable. Not only did Yemeni extremists supply the explosives used in the bungled Christmas Day plot, but Yemen's had other security problems. Of course, we know that those forced the U.S. embassy in Yemen to close for two days earlier this week. So for now, at least, the White House is saying Yemen will not be a relocation site for prisoners from Guantanamo.
BLOCK: It's interesting, though, Scott, because in his remarks today, the president also mentioned forging new partnerships to deny al-Qaida sanctuary, specifically in conjunction, he said, with the government in Yemen.
HORSLEY: That's right. And the U.S. has been working with the Yemeni government to deal with extremist threats there, trying to keep its hand a little bit in the background for fear of just aggravating the violence in that country.
BLOCK: OK. NPR White House correspondent Scott Horsley. Scott, thanks very much.
HORSLEY: It's my pleasure.