Obama: Security Agencies Failed to Connect Dots

President Obama says the foiled Christmas Day airliner attack exposed "a potentially disastrous" security failure in which the US intelligence community had enough information to connect the dots ahead of time but didn't. The lapse didn't have to do with the collection of information but with the failure to integrate and analyze what was there. "We have to do better, and we will do better and we have to do it quickly."

The president spoke after a White House meeting with high-ranking government officials charged with carrying out two reviews. "We are determined not only to thwart those (terrorists') plans, but to disrupt, dismantle and defeat their networks, once and for all," said Obama. (More President Obama stories.)