December 27, 2009, - 1:25 pm
EPIC FAIL: Terrorist Abdulmutallab Allowed on Flt 253 w/out Passport b/c of “Sharp-Dressed Man”
The more we learn about Islamic terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the more absurd the whole situation seems because it not only could have been prevented, but because every single U.S. agency and authority involved behaved with incompetence.
Kurt & Lori Haskell Say NWA Flt 253 Terrorist AbdulMutallab Had No Passport
The latest is the allegation that Abdulmutallab was able to get on the flight even though he had NO PASSPORT! (I can’t even go to Canada for a few hours, without a passport.) Given that, I have to laugh at the diaries that the Wall Street Journal published from the Shoe Bomber Abdel Rahim a/k/a Richard Reid. Reid detailed the tremendous trouble he went through in 2001, to mask his passport prior to boarding a U.S.-bound flight from Amsterdam and trying to bomb it. Reid didn’t want his British passport to reflect that he’s traveled to the Middle East. So he tore out those pages, threw his passport in his jeans pocket and put it in a laundry washing machine repeatedly. Then, when he went to get a replacement passport and told officials his story about “accidentally” throwing his passport in the laundry, suspicious officials issued him a new passport anyway.
Well, apparently, security was stricter back then. Because, eight years later, Abdulmutallab didn’t even need a passport. Passengers on Flight 253 say they watched a “sharp dressed man” (cue the ZZ Top song) convince authorities to let Abdul Mutallab on the flight WITHOUT a passport. You let a dude from a Muslim country and no luggage on a U.S.-bound plane with NO passport?! Hellooooo . . .?:
A Michigan man who was aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 says he witnessed Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab trying to board the plane in Amsterdam without a passport.
Kurt Haskell of Newport, Mich. . . . confirmed he was on the flight by sending a picture of his boarding pass. He and his wife, Lori, were returning from a safari in Uganda when they boarded the NWA flight on Friday.
Haskell said he and his wife were sitting on the ground near their boarding gate in Amsterdam, which is when they saw Mutallab approach the gate with an unidentified man. . . .
While Mutallab was poorly dressed, his friend was dressed in an expensive suit, Haskell said. He says the suited man asked ticket agents whether Mutallab could board without a passport. “The guy said, ‘He’s from Sudan and we do this all the time.’”
Mutallab is Nigerian. Haskell believes the man may have been trying to garner sympathy for Mutallab’s lack of documents by portraying him as a Sudanese refugee.
The ticket agent referred Mutallab and his companion to her manager down the hall, and Haskell didn’t see Mutallab again until after he allegedly tried to detonate an explosive on the plane. . . .
About an hour after landing, Haskell said he saw another man being taken into custody. But a spokeswoman from the FBI in Detroit said Mutallab was the only person taken into custody.
I doubt very much that in the time between when Haskell saw this guy trying to get on the plane without a passport and the time when he boarded, he suddenly manufactured a passport out of wholecloth. If it’s true–and it sure sounds like it–that this guy, Abdul Mutallab, a Muslim foreigner, was allowed to board the plane without a passport, it’s epic incompetence.
Oh, and who was the other guy the FBI took into custody? I’m not buying the agency’s story that no-one else was arrested, given what the Haskells report.
Tags: Abdel Rahim, Amsterdam, epic fail, Flight 253, incompetence, incompetent, Islam, Islamic Terrorism, Islamic terrorist, Kurt Haskell, Lori Haskell, Muslim, no passport, Northwest Airlines, Northwest Flight 253, NWA Flight 253, passport, Richard Reid, sharp dressed man, Shoe Bomber, Umar Abdul Mutallab, Umar Abdulmutallab, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Umar Mutallab, without a passport
Debbie, I think he had to go without a passport because his Nigerian passport would have revealed extensive travels to Yemen – a known al Qaeda stronghold and he would have been denied boarding. The UK banned him from entry as a national security risk. So his lack of a passport should have set off red flags at Schipol. One wonders why he and his companion were not detained then and there. There are too many unanswered questions about how he was so easily able to fly straight to the US without any one’s suspicions being aroused.
NormanF on December 27, 2009 at 1:36 pm