The Congressional Report On 9/11

The recently-released report of the joint US Congressional Committee, which had enquired into the performance of the intelligence agencies prior to 9/11, has collated from the files of the various agencies of the US intelligence community information having a bearing on 9/11, which was received before 9/11. 

The more important items from this collation are the following: 

June 1998
"Osama bin Laden is planning attacks in the US. Plans are to attack in New York and Washington. Information mentions an attack in Washington probably against public places. He probably places a high priority on conducting attacks in the US." 

September 1998
" Osama bin Laden's next target would possibly involve flying an explosive laden aircraft into a US airport and detonating it." 

October 1998
"Al Qaeda is trying to establish an operative cell within the continental United States to strike at the heart of US interests." 

December 1998
"Plans to hijack US aircraft proceeding well. Two individuals had successfully evaded check-points in dry run at NY airport." 

Spring 1999
" bin Laden planned an attack on a government facility in Washington DC." 

August 1999
"bin Laden's organisation has decided to target the US Secretary of State, Secretary of Defence, and DCI (Director, Central Intelligence)." 

September 1999
" bin Laden and others were planning a terrorist act in the United States, possibly against specific landmarks in California and New York city." 

March,2000
"The community obtained information regarding the types of targets that operatives in bin Laden's network might strike. The Statue of Liberty was specifically mentioned, as were skyscrapers, ports, airports and nuclear power plants."

March, 2000
" bin Laden was planning attacks in specific West Coast areas." 

April, 2001
"The community obtained information from a source with terrorist connections who speculated that bin Laden was interested in commercial pilots as potential terrorists. The source warned that the United States should not focus only on Embassy bombings, that terrorists sought "spectacular and traumatic" attacks and that the first World Trade Center bombing would be the type of attack that would be appealing. The source did not mention a time-frame for an attack. Because the source was offering personal speculation and not hard information, the information was not disseminated within the intelligence community." (My comment: An FBI officer in Arizona had reportedly sent a memo to the FBI headquarters expressing concern over many Arabs undergoing flying training in the US, but the memo did not receive adequate attention)

Observations of the Committee

What attention these reports received from the community and the policy-makers and what action was taken? To cite the observations of the committee: 

"The joint enquiry did not find any comprehensive intelligence community list of bin Laden-related threats to the United States that was prepared and presented to the policy makers before September 11. Such a compilation might have highlighted the volume of information the community had acquired about bin Laden's intention to strike inside the United States." 

"In August 1998, after the two Embassy bombings in Africa, the intelligence community quickly confirmed that the attacks had been carried out by bin Laden's network. The DCI made combating the threat bin Laden posed one of the intelligence community's highest priorities and he raised the status of the threat still further when he announced (my comment: in a memo to his staff) in December 1998 that "we are at war with bin Laden". 

These warnings did not result in commensurate increased allocations of resources, staff and attention for the CIA's counter-terrorismefforts. This is attributed to the CIA's then preoccupation with Iraq, Yugoslavia and the Indian sub-continent. Why the Indian sub-continent? To quote from the testimony of George Tenet, DCI, to the panel: "We were embroiled in answering questions on the India and Pakistan nuclear tests and trying to determine how we could surge more people to countering weapons of mass destruction proliferation." According to him, 800 analysts were deployed on these tasks. 

"The only substantial infusion of personnel to counter-terrorism occurred after September 11, when the number of CIA personnel assigned to the Counter-Terrorism Centre (CTC) nearly doubled from approximately 400 to 800." 

These warnings of the DCI and his declaration of a war against Al Qaeda were unknown to the FBI. Many in the FBI had not heard of them. 

"While the FBI's New York Office took the lead in the vast majority of counter-terrorism investigations concerning bin Laden, many other FBI offices around the country were unaware of the magnitude of the threat." 

"The FBI field offices except New York were clueless about counter-terrorism and Al Qaeda and did not make thempriorities --" From the testimony of Richard Clarke, former counter-terrorism co-ordinator in the US State Department.

"What we have learned since 9/11 makes clear that the FBI, as an organisation, was not as focussed (on the counter-terrorism mission)-- "From the testimony of Sandy Berger, former National Security Adviser. 

"The lack of involvement (My comment: in counter-terrorism) by agencies other than the CIA is particularlytroubling. ...While the CIA devoted resources to bin Laden, covert action and Afghanistan, the FBI focussed on investigating funding for terrorist groups other than Al Qaeda, even though FBI leadership recognised after the Embassy bombings in August 1998 that Al Qaeda posed an increasing threat. In some FBI field offices, there was little appreciation for bin Laden and Al Qaeda, including the San Diego office where FBI agents would discover after September 11 connections between terrorist sympathisers and at least two hijackers." 

"The FBI has never performed a comprehensive written assessment of the risk of the terrorist threat facing the United States.... This assessment still had not been completed as recently as FBI Director Mueller's joint enquiry testimony on October 17,2002." 

"The DCI's National Intelligence Council never produced a National Intelligence Estimate on the threat Al Qaeda and bin Laden posed to the United States." 

"From the first days of the Bush Administration through September 2001, it conducted a senior-level review of policy for dealing with Al Qaeda. The goal was to move beyond the policy of containment, criminal prosecution and limited retaliation for specific attacks, toward attempting to roll back Al Qaeda. The new goal was to eliminate completely the ability of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups of global reach to conduct terrorist attacks against the United States. Between May and the end of July, 2001, four Deputies' Committee meetings (My comment: that is National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) meetings attended by subordinate officers and not by the heads of agencies and departments) were held directly related to the regional issues which had to be resolved before in order to adopt a more aggressive strategy ( My comment: For example, the US attitude towards the military regime in Pakistan) for dealing with Al Qaeda. 

This new policy might have produced a co-ordinated Government response to the bin Laden threat or put the nation on more of a war footing with Al Qaeda before September 11. However as Mr.Hadley (My comment: The Deputy National Security Adviser) noted: "The Administration finalised its review of policy on Al Qaeda at an NSC Principals' Committee (My comment: Attended by heads of agencies and departments) meeting on September 4,2001. President Bush had not reviewed the draft policy (My comment: recommended by it) before September 11. (My comment: Thus, it took 34 months for the DCI's declaration of war against Al Qaeda to be translated into a draft plan of action and this draft had not been seen and approved by Bush till 9/11) 

While the committee has thus comprehensively collated all the information available before 9/11 and referred to the action or non-action thereon by the intelligence community and the policy makers, it has failed to examine thoroughly as to why the sins of commission and omission cited by it occurred apart from stating that other preoccupations and priorities prevented the agencies from diverting the required financial and human resources to counter-terrorism. There is no analysis of why policy-making on terrorism in general and Al Qaeda in particular moved at snail's pace taking almost 34 months for the threats projected by the various sources leading to a draft plan of action to neutralise them. 

However, by going through the report, one could see as to why things went horribly wrong. Among the important reasons are: 

Lack of sharing and collation

The agencies in receipt of information on the plans and intentions of bin Laden and Al Qaeda did not freely share the information among themselves. The information apparently remained buried in the files of the agency receiving it. As a retired intelligence officer of the US has pointed out, the committee has collated all the available information on one piece of paper.

When one reads it now, one feels that adequate, but not precise with regard to timing and targets, warning was available which should have triggered off preventive physical security measures.But before 9/11, no single official in the intelligence or policy-making community had all this information available in one sheet of paper before him. Each analyst was analysing the particular piece of information coming to him or her, without being aware that related information was available in the files of others and without taking the initiative to ask others whether they had any. 

It was to prevent such cases that the US Government had decided in the 1980s to set up a joint counter-terrorism centre (CTC) under the DCI. The CTC has officers from the CIA, the FBI, the State Department, the Attorney-General's Office, the Immigration etc working under a single roof to jointly examine all terrorism-related information and initiate follow-up action. It was to act as the repository of all terrorism-related information, open or secret, received by the various agencies and departments. Its effectiveness depended on all the agencies feeding to it all the reports received by them without holding back any. The joint enquiry report indicates that the feeding was selective and that the CIA was apparently the worst culprit in this regard. The committee has not gone into as to why this happened. 

The failure of George Tenet

The failure of the Director of the CIA to play his role as the Director, Central Intelligence, (DCI) as he was expected to. George Tenet wears two hats. As DCIA, he is responsible for the day-to-day running of the CIA. As the DCI, he acts as the intelligence adviser to the President and as the co-ordinator of all the agencies of the community. He seems to have played his role as the intelligence adviser to the President in an unsatisfactory manner. This is evident from the following: 

Firstly, he apparently did not ring the alarm bell when reports started coming in since 1998 on the plans and intentions of Al Qaeda to launch a major terrorist strike in the US homeland and advise the President and the National Security Council Secretariat on the urgent need to review physical security measures in the US in order to thwart Al Qaeda's plans. He seems to have devoted more attention to devising a strategy to neutralise Al Qaeda set-up abroad and did not pay the same attention to the equally important task of strengthening physical security inside the US. 9/11 was as much due to the failure of the physical security apparatus as it was due to the failure of the intelligence apparatus. 

Secondly, he did not push vigorously for the issue of a Presidential Directive on this subject to all the intelligence and physical security agencies. Even as co-ordinator, his role was far from satisfactory. He seems to have acted more as the DCIA and less as DCI. Since December,1998, he has been telling his officers in the CIA that the USA was at war with bin Laden and that they should pay more attention to counter-terrorism with specific reference to Al Qaeda, but he did not seem to have shared his assessment of the gravity of the threat with the other agencies of the intelligence community and the FBI and taken action to energise their counter-terrorism operations. He seems to have been unaware of the unsatisfactory mannerr in which the CTC was functioning. 

The committee has recommended the separation of the two responsibilities and the creation of a separate post of intelligence co-ordinator with Cabinet-level status. Similar recommendations had been made in the past by Congressional committees and non-Governmental experts, who felt that the DCI's simultaneously wearing the hat of the DCIA, detracted from his independence and objectivity and created suspicions in other agencies that he is not as strict in his evaluation of the performance of the CIA as he should be. 

But, the past recommendations were rejected by the previous Presidents. It remains to be seen whether President Bush would accept it. Anyhow, he has appointed his own enquiry commission on 9/11 and till it submits its report, he may not act upon the recommendation of the Congressional committee. 

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.  

(B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Convenor, Advisory Committee, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), ChennaiChapter)