A8

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THE TIMES SQUARE BOMB

ANALYSIS

2 crises offer Obama a management and message challenge

by Karen Tumulty

Barack Obama’s presidency has not lacked for crises. But the two that have dominated this week — a spreading environ- mental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and a failed car bombing that narrowly missed creating carnage in Times Square — have produced a delicate challenge of management and message at a moment when the country’s mis- trust of government is running high. The particulars of the two situ-

BRENDAN MCDERMID/REUTERS

Street vendor Lance Orton, who helped alert authorities to the Nissan Pathfinder in Times Square, speaks to the media in New York.

Probe focusing on Pakistani Taliban

bomb from A1

considered uninterested in launching attacks outside Paki- stan or Afghanistan pointed up the gravity of an incident that au- thorities characterized as a po- tentially deadly strike against the United States, albeit with an unsophisticated homemade de- vice that failed to detonate. Even as officials praised the rapid law enforcement response, the in- cident resurrected the contro- versy over the Obama adminis- tration’s handling of the attempt- ed bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day. Crit- ics said the suspect in that case should have been placed in a military, rather than civilian, court.

Speaking at a news conference

at which the government an- nounced five felony counts against Shahzad, Attorney Gen- eral Eric H. Holder Jr. said, “It is clear that this was a terrorist plot aimed at murdering Americans in one of the busiest places in our country.” Shahzad was charged with attempting to detonate the sport-utility vehicle that was set ablaze on a tourist-crowded block in Midtown Manhattan and trying to kill bystanders and destroy property. The charges in federal court in

Manhattan came on a day of fa- miliar political and law enforce- ment rituals. Obama administra- tion officials, seeking to navigate the perilous politics of terrorism, detailed their intensive involve- ment in Shahzad’s apprehension and emphasized that he was pro- viding useful intelligence to au- thorities. Some Republicans questioned whether key clues had been missed. “Like the Christmas Day bomber, we were lucky that both of these folks were incompetent

—they couldn’t trigger the explo- sives,” said Sen. Christopher S. Bond (Mo.), the ranking Repub- lican on the Senate intelligence committee. Multiple U.S. law enforcement

officials said Shahzad had at- tracted no significant law en- forcement attention before the attempted bombing. “He was not on the radar,” one official said. Also triggering debate was the decision to read Shahzad his “Mi- randa” rights against self-incrim- ination. The Miranda issue rose to prominence after the Nigerian suspect in the Christmas Day in- cident, Omar Farouk Abdulmu-

was the latest in a series of at- tempted terrorist attacks against the United States over the past year. As with some other sus- pects, it was difficult to reconcile the grim portrait of Shahzad painted by authorities with the accounts of those who know him. Shahzad’s neighbors described him as a pleasant family man who enjoyed taking care of his yard and playing with his two daughters. U.S. investigators found Shah-

zad after a two-day investigation combining old-fashioned shoe- leather detective work, sophisti- cated searches through tele-

A link to the Pakistani Taliban

is “a leading line of inquiry.”

— a federal law enforcement official

tallab, stopped cooperating with authorities after being read his rights. Some Republicans, in- cluding Sen. John McCain (R- Ariz.), said Shahzad should not have been afforded that constitu- tional right “until we find out what it’s all about.” But administration officials said Shahzad, who, like Abdul- mutallab, was initially respon- sive to questioning under a “pub- lic safety exception” to the Mi- randa rule, continued to cooperate after his rights were read to him. They also pointed out that Shahzad is a U.S. citizen and must be tried in civilian, not military, court. Officials canceled Shahzad’s scheduled appearance in Man- hattan federal court amid his re- ported dialogue with agents. It was unclear whether a lawyer had been appointed for him; he is scheduled to face a judge on Thursday at the earliest. The Times Square incident

phone and electronic records, and the latest linkups among federal immigration, travel and border databases. Authorities said they had iden-

tified Shahzad by Sunday night as “ “a person that we would like to talk to,” FBI Deputy Director John S. Pistole said. Tracing the origins of the Pathfinder was a crucial part of the probe. The car’s vehicle identification num- ber had been removed from a dashboard plate. But authorities were able to find the seller by us- ing a decal on the tailgate to trace the car to a Connecticut used-car dealer, who early Sun- day gave them sales records on two cars matching the Pathfind- er’s description.

Authorities then found the ve-

hicle’s registered owner in Con- necticut. Police officials said that was a major break in the case. Another key step was finding an e-mail from Shahzad to the car’s seller. Although Shahzad used a

fake name, he included a number from a disposable cellphone, which investigators used to de- termine his identity. Investigators served a search

warrant Tuesday at Shahzad’s home and visited a gun shop in Shelton where he bought a 9mm Kel-Tec rifle in March. Court documents said investigators found an unspecified gun in a car that Shahzad left at the airport. The probe also extended to Pa- kistan, where officials said FBI agents were expected to push their Pakistani counterparts for access to intelligence about the Pakistani Taliban and its possible involvement in the plot. Paki- stani officials pledged coopera- tion. A Pakistani intelligence offi- cial said Tuesday that authorities had arrested at least two people in the southern port city of Ka- rachi in connection with the Times Square plot. But a U.S. law enforcement official said the ar- rest was “not at our behest.” The Pakistani Taliban has

waged a campaign of bombings and assassinations against the Pakistani government in recent years. Until now, U.S. and Paki- stani intelligence officers didn’t think the group had the reach necessary to execute attacks out- side its home region, and it has traditionally shied away from the sort of global jihad espoused by al-Qaeda.

But the group’s ties with al-

Qaeda and other foreign mil- itants have expanded of late, and so have its ambitions. In a video issued this week, Pakistani Tali- ban leader Hakimullah Mehsud promised more strikes against the United States, and said that suicide bombers had infiltrated American cities.

markonj@washpost.com hsus@washpost.com

ations, which are 1,200 miles apart, could hardly be more dif- ferent. Yet the crises present some of the same questions for the president and his team: How can they convey a sense that they are on top of a rapidly changing situation? Must they set aside other business on their agenda to reassure the public that they are fully engaged, or does that make them look rattled? Which words must be said — and which avoid- ed? There have been times when you could practically hear the gears grinding as ad- ministration officials dodged the potholes appearing before them. As questions were raised about whether they recog- nized the danger in the gulf quickly enough, they put out timelines of what they had been doing behind the scenes, emphasized the resourc- es that were being brought to bear, scheduled a presidential visit to the area after saying Oba- ma had no plans to go, and made sure that “from Day One” was part of everyone’s talking points. Nor has anyone from Obama on down missed an opportunity to declare that BP will pick up the whole tab for cleaning up the mess spewing from its oil well. If, in an echo of the response to

As one White House official put it: “Actions are more impor- tant than words. You can’t spin your way out of reality.” Handled right, these two crises have the potential to restore an increas- ingly skeptical public’s faith in Obama, much the way that Presi- dent Bill Clinton’s handling of the Oklahoma City bombing did in 1995. Bungled, either or both could go down as his administra- tion’s Hurricane Katrina. In the meantime, though, this is an election year, one in which Obama’s party could potentially lose its majority in the House. And that means politics will come to bear as well. In the oil spill and the failed bombing, Democrats and Republicans have been presented with an awkward paradox: Obama has been made less vulnerable to partisan attack by virtue of earli- er decisions that alienated his base. A month before the spill, Oba- ma proposed opening up more areas to offshore drilling. Al- though the president has put a hold on new drilling until the government gets to the bottom of

Bungled, either or both could go down as his administration’s Hurricane Katrina.

the attempted Christmas airliner bombing, the administration was a little slow to acknowledge the seriousness of the threat in New York, there has been no sub- tlety in its stampede since then. As late as Monday morning, At- torney General Eric H. Holder Jr. was refusing to describe the failed car bomb in New York as “a terrorist incident.” In the brief opening statement at his news conference Tuesday, he used the words “terrorist” or “terrorism” eight times. Ultimately, of course, the president will be judged not on stagecraft, but on results. It re- mains to be seen whether sub- sequent examination will reveal lapses or missed signals. There was plenty of dazzling police work in the New York case. But it is undoubtedly awkward to ex- plain how accused Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad managed to be on both the no-fly list and a plane that was about to take off for Dubai.

what happened off Louisiana on April 20 and why, some Demo- crats are demanding that he scrap the plan. Meanwhile, Re- publicans — who made “Drill, baby, drill” their mantra during the 2008 election — have largely refrained from any criticism of how the administration is han- dling the crisis. The exception has been the demand for more federal aid by some of the same Southern lawmakers who have often pegged Obama as an avatar of Big Government. Similarly, Obama’s handling of the failed bombing has brought little criticism from the opposi- tion party. But the New York in- cident appears likely to diminish any remaining possibility that the White House would push ahead with its controversial plan to try Khalid Sheikh Moham- med, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, in a federal courtroom in Manhattan. And it might be another setback in Democrats’ efforts to close the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cu- ba.

For many Americans, this could go down as the scariest week of the Obama presidency. But depending on how well Oba- ma and his team do, it might also be an opportunity. After all, this is a White House whose watch- word was once summed up by Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel as: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”

tumultyk@washpost.com

Could the counterterror system have worked better?

system from A1

official said, speaking on the con- dition of anonymity after the ad- ministration decreed that only the departments of Justice and Homeland Security could com- ment for the record. Officials also pointed to Emir-

ates’ failure to update its no-fly list in response to federal bulle- tins Monday afternoon, allowing Shahzad, who arrived at the air- port at 7:35 p.m. after booking his flight from his car on the way, to board the 11 p.m. flight. Another senior official ac- knowledged that the process is not foolproof. “We have a system that is built with redundancy and that is agile, increasingly so,” he said. “So while it’s our job to wor- ry — and to act on those worries — we also feel like we have a sys- tem that’s been improved over time.”

But some Republicans, noting

that the attempt was not prevent- ed, criticized the administration for its actions after the plot was uncovered, including reading Miranda rights to Shahzad hours after his arrest. Administration officials said he was initially questioned without those rights, under an exemption that allows such interrogation if there is an “imminent threat,” but was given

from his parents — and allegedly with a bomb in his underwear. Like the Times Square bomb, that explosive malfunctioned. Obama ordered a major review

MARIO TAMA/GETTY IMAGES

Onlookers gather outside the courtroom in New York where Faisal Shahzad was charged in the Times Square bombing attempt.

a Miranda warning once it was determined that there was no on- going threat. Officials said he waived his rights and continued to cooperate. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle suggested that there is a basic hole in the intelligence sys- tem that is difficult to fill. “In- creasingly, the dilemma is the well-educated man who moves through the education system of our country somewhat promis- ingly,” said Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.); Shahzad is a graduate of U.S. universities. “I’ve always felt that this was

the future in America for what we have to watch for in terror- ism,” said Sen. John D. Rockefel- ler IV (D-W.Va.), a member of the intelligence committee. “And it’s very hard to protect against, be- cause you don’t know who they are.” After an aborted bombing at- tempt aboard a plane on Christ- mas Day, President Obama cited a systemic failure that allowed the suspect, a Nigerian citizen, to travel on a commercial airliner despite intelligence warnings about his possible connection to terrorism — some of which came

of watch-list procedures and fail- ures that had also allowed the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmu- tallab, to retain a valid U.S. visa. Officials said Tuesday that the criteria for searching and ques- tioning individuals had been tightened since then but that the administration is still discussing whether to alter its standard of “reasonable suspicion” of terror- ism connections. Even if new criteria had been in place, however, officials agreed that it was unlikely that questions would have been raised over Shahzad’s apparently taking several trips to Pakistan, where his parents and other fam- ily members lived. Naturalized in April 2009, he lived with his fam- ily in Connecticut and until last year was an employed homeown- er. He broke no laws and did nothing to call attention to him- self. It was not until the day after the car bomb was found that fed- eral officials discovered a foreign connection, linking a telephone number used by the purchaser of the vehicle to Pakistan and, by early Monday morning, to Shah-

zad. They gleaned details about him from an unrelated airport screening conducted when he re- turned from Pakistan in Febru- ary, a requirement for all pas- sengers from certain countries instituted after the Christmas Day attempt. The requirement was eliminated this spring after the targeted countries, including Pakistan, complained. At 12:30 p.m. Monday, Shah-

zad’s name was added to the ter- rorism suspect database at the National Counterterrorism Cen- ter and airlines were alerted through a “Web board” — a se- cure government site with an up- dated list of passengers who should be blocked from flying. By 4:45 p.m., Shahzad’s pass-

port number was added to the Web site, officials said. The gov- ernment and Emirates airline pointed fingers at each other over what happened next. The company said that when the list was updated, Shahzad, who booked the flight at 6:30 while traveling to the airport, was not yet on the manifest. Emirates of- ficials said they informed the government that a last-minute, one-way ticket had been reserved and paid for in cash, but got no response. Officials said they had no record of that message. “If he was put on the no-fly list

before he arrived at the airport, then he never should have been allowed to board the plane in the first place,” said Sen. Susan Col- lins (Maine), the ranking Repub- lican on the Homeland Security Committee. She added, however, “It’s evident to me, in contrast to the Abdulmutallab case, there was much better coordination this time at the federal level be- tween our intelligence agencies and our law enforcement agen- cies.” It was unclear exactly when Shahzad was first physically lo- cated. “The situation was ex- tremely fast-moving,” an official said. “Within a few hours,” he said, the FBI had “begun surveil- lance. At some point, he was able to slip surveillance.” Another official said it was possible that the FBI was track- ing more than one person in sim- ilar vehicles, without knowing for sure which person was Shah- zad or where he was going. At 10:40 p.m., 20 minutes be- fore takeoff, the airline sent a “last look” passenger manifest to Customs and Border Protection, and the suspect hit “as a possible match,” an official said. Agents reached the plane just after the door had been closed.

deyoungkaren@washpost.com kornbluta@washpost.com

KLMNO

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