How does an individual like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab get on a plane with an explosive device with the intent to cause catastrophic harm? Clearly, the security measures we put in place did not work. The key question now is what lessons the Obama administration will draw from this incident to improve security procedures.

There are a lot of questions to be asked and answered. One thing is clear: we got lucky in this case. Although European officials reportedly provided advanced passenger data before the flight left Amsterdam; U.S. officials did not take the appropriate action. If it had not been for the bravery of the passengers and a device that malfunctioned we would be talking about many dead. This was a spectacular failure of our air travel security system and that needs to be...