Monday, January 4, 2010

Secret Service: Third Gate-Crasher at Dinner with Obama

There is a pattern here. On three separate (Fort Hood, Christmas underwear bomber, White House party crashers) occasions within the last 3 months there have breeches of security that could have been disastrous. You can bet America's enemies' mouths are watering. This President is starting to look the disastrous previous occupant of the White House. It's only a matter of time before there is a disaster (alas 9-11, Katrina, or the Stock Market crash) during the tenure of this administration.

The Salahis weren't the only gate-crashers living it up at the White House state dinner last November.

The Secret Service revealed Monday that a third individual who was not on the guest list made it into the dinner, though the agency says the individual went through security screening and did not appear to have any interaction with President Obama.

The Secret Service, which did not name the individual, said the information about the third party-crasher came out in the course of the investigation into the breach at the Nov. 24 dinner honoring India's prime minister. The Secret Service said in a written statement that the individual traveled from a "local hotel" where the Indian delegation was staying and arrived with the group at the dinner.

"This individual went through all required security measures along with the rest of the official delegation at the hotel, and boarded a bus/van with the delegation guests en route to the White House," the Secret Service said.

The investigation was launched after the Secret Service found that Michaele and Tareq Salahi got into the state dinner without an invitation. The agency acknowledged the officers on duty did not check whether they were on the list. President Obama has since called the breach a "screw-up" while the Salahis have maintained their innocence.
Here's another security breech:
A former senior intelligence official is confirming that the suicide bomber who killed eight people inside a CIA base in Afghanistan was a Jordanian doctor recruited by Jordanian intelligence to support U.S. efforts against Al Qaeda.

The bombing killed seven CIA employees -- four officers and three contracted security guards -- and a Jordanian intelligence officer, Ali bin Zaid, according to a second former U.S. intelligence official. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

The former senior intelligence official confirmed an NBC News report Monday that the bomber was Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a 36-year old doctor from Zarqa, Jordan. He was arrested over a year ago by Jordanian intelligence, and was thought to have been flipped to support U.S. and Jordanian efforts against Al Qaeda.