US intelligence knew he was an Al Quaeda operative, yet allowed him to fly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_Farouk_Abdulmutallab#The_awareness_of_US_intellig

US intelligence knew he was an Al Quaeda operative, yet allowed him to fly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_Farouk_Abdulmutallab#The_awareness_of_US_intelligence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_Farouk_Abdulmutallab#The_a... Terrorist attacks increase the funding of the intel and security institutions, so they have a vested interest in them occurring (and a state willing to kill tens of thousands of civilians in Iraq to advance its objectives likely has little problem sacrificing the odd planeload of its own citizens to maintain public support for its ambitions).