Task force to probe recent security failures

Former top CIA official John McLaughlin (R) and former FBI Director Robert Mueller testify on Capitol Hill, September 8, 2004.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former top CIA official John McLaughlin was named on Friday to head a task force to examine why the United States failed to prevent the December 25 airplane attack and the November shootings at Fort Hood and to make recommendations for reform.

"John McLaughlin is especially well-qualified to lead an independent assessment in this area and provide candid, constructive guidance to improve our future performance," U.S. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said in a statement.

On Thursday President Barack Obama took ultimate responsibility for security failures that led to the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a U.S. airliner and ordered reforms aimed at thwarting future attacks.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian linked to a Yemen-based branch of al Qaeda, is accused of attempted murder and attempted use of a "weapon of mass destruction" to blow up the Detroit-bound passenger jet with almost 300 people on board.

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a Muslim born in the United States, is charged with killing 13 people and wounding dozens in the November 5 rampage at the Fort Hood Army base in central Texas ahead of his deployment to Afghanistan.

McLaughlin was the CIA's deputy director from 2000 to 2004, with a brief stint as acting director during his last year.

He will lead a group of national security experts to examine the sequence of events leading up to the bombing attack and the shooting and to propose how to correct "potential weaknesses" in intelligence systems and procedures the incidents exposed, Blair's statement said.

(Reporting by Doug Palmer; Editing by Xavier Briand)