He did not support Saddam Hussein, he is against the war in Iraq. Many people will take offense if you do not make that distinction. Secondly, Cat Stevens did not go through security with C4 (which Reid would not have been able to light, and actually produced a really interesting case in court) in his shoe In a message dated 9/22/2004 8:23:45 PM Central Daylight Time, russng@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes: The authorities didn't feel that Richard Reed was a dangerous threat either. No red flags appeared next to his name. Not until he tried to light his shoe bomb did people know how dangerous he was. If he had done it in the washroom, that would have been the end of the aircraft and passengers. There is a fine line between who is allowed into the US and who isn't. With his well publicized support for Saddam Hussein, support of the fatwa regarding Salman Rushdie, I think this would have caused some ripples in TSA's pond. TSA decided that they'd rather err on the side of caution in Yusuf Islam's case and order the aircraft to land in Bangor.