In the days since a suspected al Qaeda terrorist tried an X-Mas Day bombing of an airplane bound for Detroit the country’s counterterrorism apparatus has been on the griddle.

Now lawmakers seem to be turning the fight against terrorism into political football — as the problem grows with no clear-cut solutions.

President Barack Obama returned to Washington on Monday from his Hawaiian vacation with the need to fix the country’s counterterrorism network at the top of his agenda.

And although Republicans have been having a field day in attacking the system, even top Democrats say it must be fixed.

“There have been some mistakes made, no one disputes that,” New York Sen. Charles Schumer said.

Schumer ticked off a laundry list of intelligence missteps that led to a 23-year-old Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, getting about a plane bound for Detroit with an underwear bomb. Others, even moderate Republicans, think the Obama administration made mistakes.

“Look, we had an administration which was not as focus as it should be on terrorism,” Thomas Kean, former governor of New Jersey and the chairman of the 9/11 Commission.

But Schumer said the blame game has got to stop. The mission now is to fix the system.

“There’s plenty of blame to go around and plenty of fingers to be pointed. You can point to decisions that the Bush administration made or should not have made. You can point to similar decisions in the Obama administration. I think what’s important here is to keep us safe,” Sen. Schumer said.

Some argue that our intelligence operation isn’t broken, just in need of a tune-up.

“I think the architecture’s basically sound and has served us well over eight years,” said Michael Chertoff, former head of the Department of Homeland Security.

Others said the president has to do more.

“I think what the president has to do, because this seems so egregious you can’t just fix the problem for this specific instance,” Sen. Schumer said. “You have to do a whole review of the system.”

The president was briefed by the CIA Monday on the state of the country’s anti-terrorism actions. On Tuesday he will meet with the entire security team.

On another front, Sen. Schumer on Monday demanded that the federal government foot the entire bill for the trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other suspected al Qaeda members due to be sent here from Guantanamo Bay.

He said it will cost several hundred million dollars that the city can’t afford to shell out.

(Source: WCBSTV)