New Year's Eve was the deadline for President Barack Obama to receive a preliminary report on his administration's review of the intelligence and homeland security failures that allowed a 23-year old Nigerian, Umar Abdulmutallab, to allegedly get on a Northwest Airlines flight with a bomb which he tried to explode on Christmas Day.

The president said in a statement he expects to get early reports from administration officials Thursday evening and plans on reviewing them over the weekend to be followed by discussions with agency heads on Tuesday.

His statement::

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

____________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 31, 2009

Statement from the President on preliminary assessments from reviews ordered on the Christmas Day incident

This morning, I spoke with John Brennan about preliminary assessments from the ongoing consultations I have ordered into the human and systemic failures that occurred leading up to the attempted act of terrorism on Christmas Day and about our government-wide efforts at continued vigilance on homeland security and counterterrorism efforts. In a separate call, I spoke with Sec. Napolitano to receive an update on both the Department of Homeland Security review of detection capabilities and the enhanced security measures in place since the Christmas Day incident.

I anticipate receiving assessments from several agencies this evening and will review those tonight and over the course of the weekend. On Tuesday, in Washington, I will meet personally with relevant agency heads to discuss our ongoing reviews as well as security enhancements and intelligence-sharing improvements in our homeland security and counterterrorism operations.

NOTE: John Brennan is Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.