By Arun Kumar, IANS,
Washington: A US Congressional panel Thursday began a probe into how a celebrity couple gatecrashed into President Barack Obama’s state dinner for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, noting there were “undeniable planning and execution failures” by the Secret Service apparatus. However, the security service chief said the “mistake” did not pose a risk to the dignitaries.
As the House Homeland Security Committee began the hearing, its Democratic chairman Bennie Thompson said the lawmakers need to talk not only to the alleged gatecrashers Tareq and Michaele Salahi, but also to White House social secretary Desiree Rogers.
All three have declined to appear.
Thompson said that if the Salahis didn’t show up, the panel was prepared to move forward with subpoenas “to compel their appearance”.
“We’re not concerned about agency embarrassment,” he said. “The security gaps at issue cannot be explained away as missteps by a few frontline employees. There were undeniable planning and execution failures of the entire Secret Service apparatus,” Thompson said.
“We’re all fortunate that this diplomatic celebration did not become a night of horror. … We must dissect every fact … and after we do these things, we need to give thanks that no lives were lost,” he said.
Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan told the House Homeland Security panel Thursday: “In our judgment, a mistake was made. In our line of work, we cannot afford even one mistake.”
Sullivan, who had previously acknowledged a failure in procedure by his agency, was the lone witness at Thursday’s hearing.
“I fully acknowledge that the proper procedures were not followed … This flaw has not changed our agency’s standard, which is to be right 100 percent of the time,” he said adding that “as an agency, we will continue to remain our harshest critic.”
Thompson asked Sullivan what went wrong. “What we find is if the protocols are followed, we would not run into this situation,” the Secret Service chief replied. He said in this case, normal procedures were not followed, although he did not elaborate.
Asked whether there was a risk posed to people attending the dinner for the visiting prime minister of India, Sullivan said he was confident that there wasn’t and said, particularly, that “it did not pose a risk to the president”.
Asked if he was comfortable making that statement, Sullivan replied that he was. He said there was no threat to President Barack Obama, noting that “last week we took him to a basketball game, and there was 5,000 people sitting around the president.”
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs earlier this week described both Obama and his wife, Michelle, as angered by the incident.
The Secret Service chief did say he felt that in the future, there must be someone from the White House staff present at checkpoints for social event guests.
Asked by the top Republican on the panel Peter King if the pair would have been able to penetrate the White House if a representative of the White House had indeed been present for clearance assistance, Sullivan replied, “It would have helped.”