By Allan Lengel

For AOL News

WASHINGTON — James Cavanaugh, who recently retired as a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives official after 33 years, Monday shared his insights into the Times Square car bomb with AOL News.

Cavanaugh said he thought the culprit or culprits likely had international ties. He also said he wouldn’t rule out the theory that the bomb was in retaliation for an episode of the Comedy Central cartoon “South Park” that mocked the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

But, he said, the device was poorly built and appeared destined to fail. “It was just too complicated,” he said. “It was a grandiose plot, but sort of a ridiculous device.”

AOL News: How much planning went into this?

Cavanaugh: It’s not one day of planning and it’s not one year’s worth of planning. It looks like two or three weeks. This device was thrown together slapdash. It’s clear they never tested it or had any technical skills to build it. It’s almost as if they read about it on the Web and tried to build it. It came out flawed, and it malfunctioned. You can tell it’s quite a complicated contraption.

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