MARY LOUISE KELLY, host:
This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. Guy Raz is away. I'm Mary Louise Kelly.
The U.S. and British embassies in Yemen are locked tight today. President Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, says that's because of intelligence that al-Qaida was plotting an attack.
Mr. JOHN BRENNAN (Deputy National Security Adviser): And we're not going to take any chances with the lives of our diplomats and others who are at that embassy. So we made a decision overnight. I spoke with Ambassador Seche, our ambassador in Sana'a, to make sure that we're doing everything possible to protect our diplomats there.
KELLY: And that's White House counterterrorism chief, John Brennan, speaking earlier today on Fox News.
Joining us now is the man who had that job during the Clinton administration and the early George W. Bush years, Richard Clarke.
Good to have you on the show.
Mr. RICHARD CLARKE (Former White House Aide): Good to be with you.
KELLY: What do you make of the decision to close the embassy today in Sana'a?
Mr. CLARKE: Well, it sounds like a major event, but in actual fact, we close embassies because of terrorism threats with some frequency. We've done it throughout Africa, throughout the Middle East. When we receive a credible threat against the embassy, we close it down until we can improve security and until we can close out the threat.
KELLY: And in this case, this embassy has been attacked more than once in the past, as recently as last year.
Mr. CLARKE: There was a very major attack against this embassy last year that was only stopped by the second barrier of defenses. And we know there are 100, perhaps 200 al-Qaida people operating inside the country, and they have promised revenge for the U.S. airstrikes against al-Qaida in Yemen that occurred in the middle of December.
KELLY: This weekend, President Obama came out and made a direct link between this branch of al-Qaida based in Yemen and the attempted bombing on Christmas of a U.S. passenger jet. That's the first time - if I'm not mistaken, the first time that an al-Qaida branch, a franchise of the core group, has attempted to attack the U.S. directly since 9/11.
Mr. CLARKE: I think that's right. There have been several attempts at aviation attacks, but they've all been drawn back to what's called al-Qaida Central, the people in Pakistan on the Afghan border. There have been attempts by Afghan affiliates to do attacks elsewhere, notably the Bali bombing, attacks in Morocco and elsewhere. But to attack the United States directly, this may be the first time we've seen somebody other than al-Qaida Central trying it.
KELLY: You mentioned, of course, this was an aviation attack. Why is al-Qaida so focused on continuing to attack airplanes?
Mr. CLARKE: Well, it's not just al-Qaida. If you look at the history over the last 30 years or more of terrorism attacks, very, very often, it's against international aviation. And the reason the terrorists focus on aviation is, primarily, the publicity it gets. It gets a lot more attention around the world than if the attack were on a police station or a school.
The terrorists also know that aviation is key to international economics. And so, it hurts business. And it inconveniences hundreds of thousands of people because every time they try something, there are new security measures put into effect that disrupt travel.
KELLY: Is it an indication of progress in counterterrorism efforts that as devastating as it would have been had this bomb on Christmas Day gone off, you're talking one plane, as opposed to on 9/11, when al-Qaida seemed to have much greater, wider ambitions, multiple planes, attacks coming from multiple cities coordinated simultaneously.
Mr. CLARKE: Well, there have been three attempts by al-Qaida, including 9/11, to do multiple airplane attacks simultaneously. And when this one happened, the Department of Homeland Security stepped up. Janet Napolitano talked about this as being the system worked.
It did work after the attack. They immediately started searching aircraft that were in the air. And they kept other aircraft on the ground because they expected multiple attacks.
KELLY: What's your take, Richard Clarke, on why U.S. spy agencies missed this, were not able to prevent it? Why, as the president has put it, there was a systemic failure to prevent this attack?
Mr. CLARKE: Well, no matter how good your software is, at the end of the day, there are humans in the loop. And it appears that there have been, in this case, a few mistakes by humans.
There was a mistake by CIA in sitting on this information for too long a time, not sharing it, as it's supposed to do right away, with the National Counterterrorism Center.
There were also mistakes apparently at the State Department, where information was received about this bomber and his father's allegations. And yet, that information was not immediately acted on.
KELLY: There's, of course, ongoing reviews being led by John Brennan at the White House to try to fix some of these gaps. What is your sense of what's likely to come out of all this? What more will change since the U.S. intelligence organizations have just been through a major overhaul these recent years?
Mr. CLARKE: And I don't think we need another major overhaul. I think what we do need is to, you know, reinvigorate everyone involved. Because there hasn't been a major attack in so long, a lot of people become complacent. They don't realize that their boring drudgery of intelligence analysis that they have to do every day is extremely important, and lives depend on it. So there is just infusing people with a new enthusiasm for their work.
KELLY: Could that be the silver lining of this episode, that at the end of the day, no one did die, the plane was not destroyed and perhaps it serves as a wake-up call to allow people to fix things, get it right the next time?
Mr. CLARKE: Well, Obama has good luck, and his luck has held in this case, and because there was not a fatality, and yet we're able to see the mistakes in the system. There's an opportunity here for the Obama administration to make some real improvements and have the congressional and perhaps even the public support that they need.
If the Obama administration had called for full-body scans six months ago, there would have been a widespread outrage against it. Now, I think it'll happen.
KELLY: Richard Clarke, you were the chief counterterrorism adviser both before and after 9/11 at the White House. When something like this happens, do you still feel any sort of personal responsibility, any sense of how the system could've been, should've been tweaked to help prevent these types of things from happening?
Mr. CLARKE: Well, I think it's very hard for anyone who's held these jobs not to feel, when something like this happens, that they would like to be there and like to be helping out. But this is an administration in its first year in office, and it's responding in a way that, frankly, other administrations during their first year would not have been able to do.
KELLY: Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism adviser to Presidents Bush and Clinton, thanks very much.
Mr. CLARKE: Thank you.