The Congressional report has also failed to go adequately into the institutional deficiencies, which have come in the way of effective counter-terrorism. Before 9/11, the USA did not have a nodal department dealing with all threats to internal security similar to the Home Department of the UK and the Ministry of Home Affairs of the Govt. of India.Nor did it have an internal intelligence agency as we call it in India or the Security Service (MI5) as the British call it to collect secret intelligence on possible threats to internal security.
The USA's Department of Interior deals with issues like environment etc and has nothing to do with internal security. The FBI is partly an agency for law-enforcenent and investigation and prosecution of federal crime and partly an intelligence agency. Its intelligence collection was focussed more on intelligence relating to cases under investigation and the preventive aspect of intelligence collection did not receive the same attentioin as it does in the MI5.
The CIA was made the nodal agency for all counter-terrorism operations and given the leadership role in the CTC. This was because past threats to the US nationals and interests from international terrorists mainly related to its overseas presence. Despite the New York World Trade Centre explosion of February,1993, by a group of jihadi terrorists of foreign origin, which brought home to the US authorities for the first time the likelihood of serious threats to internal security from jihadi terrorism, the leadership role has remained with the CIA.
The creation of the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11 is expected to remove the deficiency due the absence of a nodal department to deal with all threats to internal security. But, it would not be as effective as it should be unless and until it has an internal intelligence agency or a security service for the collection of internal security related intelligence and has the leadership role in counter-terrorism, whether internal or external.
There seems to be a reluctance in the Bush Administration to give the required teeth to the Homeland Security Department, with the result that the responsibility for counter-terrorism continues to remain weak and diffused. The concept of internal security management has never received the attention it deserves in the USA before 9/11. Whenever US analysts talked of national security management in the past, they essentially had in mind external security. There is greater attention being paid to internal security management after 9/11, but it is still far from adequate.
The continuing ambivalence and confusion in thinking would be evident from the fact that instead of revamping the CTC and placing it under the Department of Homeland Security, the Bush Administration reportedly intends creating one more counter-terrorism co-ordination set-up called the Terrorism Threat Integration Centre and placing that too under theDCI.