US President Barack Obama admitted that American intelligence had 'screwed up' by failing to intercept the alleged Christmas Day plane bomber before he boarded his flight in Amsterdam for Detroit. Intelligence agencies could not 'connect those dots' linking Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab with warnings from his own father to CIA officials in Nigeria that his son had been dangerously radicalised in Yemen, with advice from MI5 that it had withdrawn his visa to Britain, and with specific information that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula planned an imminent strike against the US.
While he is reviewing his intelligence procedures, Obama should also look critically at the labyrinthine panoply of 'security' measures confronting airline passengers to ask whether they are efficient or effective, cost-effective, and whether they are damaging America's reputation.
Officials acted quickly after Abdulmutallab's arrest. The US Transportation Security Administration sent out another 'security' directive to make flying miserable. Politicians promised to use controversial full-body scanners and Washington issued a list of 14 countries whose passengers must undergo extra special checks.
The new measures display a dangerous mixture of arrogance, empty theatre, the idiocy of small-minded bureaucrats and posturing politicians. Weary passengers say they are prepared to put up with extra security if it keeps them safe. But that is the big question the security agencies have failed to answer.
Getting a sense of perspective about air travel safety is elusive because of the anguish of the desperate scenes of September 11 and because the crash of any airliner is so horrendous. In 2008, according to Flight International, there were 34 fatal aircraft accidents, causing 583 deaths - a small number beside the 37,300 Americans killed in the same year in road accidents.
Terrorism is not the gravest threat facing the world. But governments must be seen to be protecting their people. The latest measures illustrate that governments know how to panic to the terrorists' tune.