CNN’s Abbie Boudreau and Scott Zamost report that in particular, agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division are being sought out for air marshal posts, since they already receive some of the necessary training in their regular jobs.

In 2008 CNN reported that fewer than 1 percent of the average of 28,000 daily commercial flights carried air marshals. Nor was an air marshal aboard Northwest 253 on its Christmas Day flight from Amsterdam, Netherlands, to Detroit, Michigan.

DHS employees are being asked to volunteer for assignments at U.S. diplomatic missions to help State Department officials review applications for visas. The assignments, "some of which are located in high-threat areas," would last at least thirty days, the notice states.

ICE agents already are posted in a dozen countries to weed out applications from potential terrorists or criminals, but the new notice seeks people to conduct in-depth background checks and write intelligence reports. Federal officials told CNN they would back up State Department officials who lack law-enforcement experience to look for security threats.

After meeting with his homeland security and counterterrorism team Tuesday, Obama told reporters that the government "has to do better" to stop attacks like the December 25 attempt to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253.

The suspect in that attack, 23-year-old Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, was indicted Wednesday on six criminal counts, including attempting to blow up an airplane and attempting to murder the other 289 people aboard.

An unclassified version of the administration's preliminary report on the plot will be released today, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Boudreau and Zamost report that privately, Obama told his national security team that the incident represented "a screw-up that could have been disastrous," according to a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity.