Could 9 11 Have Been Prevented How to Prevent 9 11 From Happening Again

THE ix/11 Committee Report Final Written report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United states of america EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Nosotros present the narrative of this report and the recommendations that menstruation from it to the President of the United States, the United states of america Congress, and the American people for their consideration. Ten Commissioners-v Republicans and five Democrats called by elected leaders from our nation's capital at a fourth dimension of great partisan division-have come together to nowadays this written report without dissent. Nosotros accept come together with a unity of purpose because our nation demands it. September 11, 2001, was a mean solar day of unprecedented shock and suffering in the history of the United States. The nation was unprepared. A NATION TRANSFORMED At eight:46 on the morn of September 11, 2001, the United states became a nation transformed. An airliner traveling at hundreds of miles per 60 minutes and carrying some 10,000 gallons of jet fuel plowed into the North Belfry of the Earth Trade Centre in Lower Manhattan. At 9:03, a 2nd airliner striking the South Tower. Fire and smoke billowed upward. Steel, drinking glass, ash, and bodies fell below. The Twin Towers, where upwards to 50,000 people worked each twenty-four hours, both collapsed less than 90 minutes later. At 9:37 that same forenoon, a tertiary airliner slammed into the western face of the Pentagon. At ten:03, a 4th airliner crashed in a field in southern Pennsylvania. It had been aimed at the United states of america Capitol or the White House, and was forced downwards by heroic passengers armed with the knowledge that America was under assail. More than two,600 people died at the World Trade Center; 125 died at the Pentagon; 256 died on the four planes. The death toll surpassed that at Pearl Harbor in Dec 1941. This immeasurable pain was inflicted by 19 young Arabs acting at the behest of Islamist extremists headquartered in afar Transitional islamic state of afghanistan. Some had been in the United States for more than a twelvemonth, mixing with the rest of the population. Though iv had training as pilots, most were not well-educated. Most spoke English poorly, some hardly at all. In groups of four or five, carrying with them only small knives, box cutters, and cans of Mace or pepper spray, they had hijacked the four planes and turned them into mortiferous guided missiles. Why did they do this? How was the attack planned and conceived? How did the U.S. authorities fail to anticipate and preclude it? What can we do in the hereafter to preclude like acts of terrorism? A Shock, Non a Surprise The 9/11 attacks were a daze, but they should non accept come every bit a surprise. Islamist extremists had given plenty of warning that they meant to kill Americans indiscriminately and in large numbers. Although Usama Bin Ladin himself would not emerge as a signal threat until the late 1990s, the threat of Islamist terrorism grew over the decade. In February 1993, a group led by Ramzi Yousef tried to bring downwards the World Trade Centre with a truck bomb. They killed six and wounded a thousand. Plans by Omar Abdel Rahman and others to blow up the Holland and Lincoln tunnels and other New York City landmarks were frustrated when the plotters were arrested. In October 1993, Somali tribesmen shot down U.S. helicopters, killing 18 and wounding 73 in an incident that came to be known equally "Black Hawk down." Years afterward it would be learned that those Somali tribesmen had received help from al Qaeda. In early 1995, police in Manila uncovered a plot by Ramzi Yousef to blow upwards a dozen U.Southward. airliners while they were flying over the Pacific. In November 1995, a auto flop exploded outside the office of the U.Due south. program managing director for the Saudi National Baby-sit in Riyadh, killing v Americans and two others. In June 1996, a truck flop demolished the Khobar Towers apartment complex in Dhahran, Kingdom of saudi arabia, killing xix U.S. servicemen and wounding hundreds. The attack was carried out primarily by Saudi Hezbollah, an organization that had received aid from the regime of Islamic republic of iran. Until 1997, the U.S. intelligence community viewed Bin Ladin as a financier of terrorism, not as a terrorist leader. In February 1998, Usama Bin Ladin and 4 others issued a self-styled fatwa, publicly declaring that it was God'southward decree that every Muslim should endeavour his utmost to impale whatever American, military or noncombatant, anywhere in the world, because of American "occupation" of Islam's holy places and aggression against Muslims. In August 1998, Bin Ladin's grouping, al Qaeda, carried out well-nigh-simultaneous truck flop attacks on the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Republic of kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The attacks killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, and wounded thousands more than. In December 1999, Jordanian police foiled a plot to bomb hotels and other sites frequented by American tourists, and a U.S. Customs amanuensis arrested Ahmed Ressam at the U.South. Canadian border as he was smuggling in explosives intended for an attack on Los Angeles International Airport. In October 2000, an al Qaeda team in Aden, Yemen, used a motorboat filled with explosives to accident a pigsty in the side of a destroyer, the USS Cole, almost sinking the vessel and killing 17 American sailors. The 9/11 attacks on the Earth Trade Center and the Pentagon were far more elaborate, precise, and subversive than any of these earlier assaults. But by September 2001, the executive co-operative of the U.South. authorities, the Congress, the news media, and the American public had received clear warning that Islamist terrorists meant to kill Americans in high numbers. Who Is the Enemy? Who is this enemy that created an organization capable of inflicting such horrific damage on the Usa? We at present know that these attacks were carried out by diverse groups of Islamist extremists. The 9/xi attack was driven past Usama Bin Ladin. In the 1980s, young Muslims from around the globe went to Afghanistan to bring together as volunteers in a jihad (or holy struggle) confronting the Soviet Marriage. A wealthy Saudi, Usama Bin Ladin, was ane of them. Following the defeat of the Soviets in the late 1980s, Bin Ladin and others formed al Qaeda to mobilize jihads elsewhere. The history, culture, and torso of behavior from which Bin Ladin shapes and spreads his message are largely unknown to many Americans. Seizing on symbols of Islam's past greatness, he promises to restore pride to people who consider themselves the victims of successive foreign masters. He uses cultural and religious allusions to the holy Qur'an and some of its interpreters. He appeals to people disoriented past cyclonic change as they confront modernity and globalization. His rhetoric selectively draws from multiple sources-Islam, history, and the region'due south political and economical malaise. Bin Ladin also stresses grievances against the Us widely shared in the Muslim world. He inveighed against the presence of U.Due south. troops in Saudi Arabia, which is the abode of Islam's holiest sites, and against other U.S. policies in the Middle Due east. Upon this political and ideological foundation, Bin Ladin built over the course of a decade a dynamic and lethal organization. He built an infrastructure and organization in Afghanistan that could attract, train, and use recruits against ever more than aggressive targets. He rallied new zealots and new coin with each sit-in of al Qaeda's capability. He had forged a close alliance with the Taliban, a government providing sanctuary for al Qaeda. By September xi, 2001, al Qaeda possessed leaders able to evaluate, approve, and supervise the planning and direction of a major operation; a personnel system that could recruit candidates, indoctrinate them, vet them, and give them the necessary training; communications sufficient to enable planning and direction of operatives and those who would be helping them; an intelligence effort to gather required information and form assessments of enemy strengths and weaknesses; the ability to move people groovy distances; and the power to raise and move the money necessary to finance an assault. 1998 to September eleven, 2001 The August 1998 bombings of U.South. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania established al Qaeda as a potent adversary of the United States. After launching prowl missile strikes confronting al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan and Sudan in retaliation for the embassy bombings, the Clinton administration applied diplomatic pressure to attempt to persuade the Taliban regime in Afghanistan to expel Bin Ladin. The administration too devised covert operations to use CIA-paid foreign agents to capture or kill Bin Ladin and his principal lieutenants. These actions did non cease Bin Ladin or dislodge al Qaeda from its sanctuary. By belatedly 1998 or early 1999, Bin Ladin and his advisers had agreed on an idea brought to them by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) chosen the "planes performance." It would eventually culminate in the 9/11 attacks. Bin Ladin and his master of operations, Mohammed Atef, occupied undisputed leadership positions atop al Qaeda. Within al Qaeda, they relied heavily on the ideas and enterprise of strong-willed field commanders, such equally KSM, to carry out worldwide terrorist operations. KSM claims that his original plot was even grander than those carried out on nine/eleven-ten planes would set on targets on both the Eastward and West coasts of the U.s.a.. This plan was modified by Bin Ladin, KSM said, attributable to its scale and complexity. Bin Ladin provided KSM with four initial operatives for suicide plane attacks inside the Usa, and in the fall of 1999 training for the attacks began. New recruits included four from a cell of expatriate Muslim extremists who had clustered together in Hamburg, Germany. I became the tactical commander of the operation in the U.s.a.: Mohamed Atta. U.Southward. intelligence frequently picked up reports of attacks planned by al Qaeda. Working with foreign security services, the CIA bankrupt up some al Qaeda cells. The core of Bin Ladin's organization nevertheless remained intact. In December 1999, news about the arrests of the terrorist cell in Jordan and the arrest of a terrorist at the U.Southward.-Canadian border became part of a "millennium alert." The government was galvanized, and the public was on alert for whatever possible attack. In January 2000, the intense intelligence try glimpsed then lost sight of 2 operatives destined for the "planes operation." Spotted in Kuala Lumpur, the pair were lost passing through Bangkok. On January 15, 2000, they arrived in Los Angeles. Because these ii al Qaeda operatives had spent lilliputian fourth dimension in the W and spoke lilliputian, if any, English, it is plausible that they or KSM would take tried to identify, in accelerate, a friendly contact in the United States. We explored suspicions well-nigh whether these two operatives had a support network of accomplices in the United States. The testify is thin-just not at that place for some cases, more worrisome in others. We practice know that soon after arriving in California, the two al Qaeda operatives sought out and institute a grouping of ideologically like-minded Muslims with roots in Yemen and Kingdom of saudi arabia, individuals mainly associated with a young Yemeni and others who attended a mosque in San Diego. Afterwards a cursory stay in Los Angeles about which we know little, the al Qaeda operatives lived openly in San Diego nether their true names. They managed to avoid attracting much attending. By the summer of 2000, three of the four Hamburg cell members had arrived on the Eastward Coast of the United States and had begun pilot grooming. In early 2001, a fourth future hijacker pilot, Hani Hanjour, journeyed to Arizona with some other operative, Nawaf al Hazmi, and conducted his refresher airplane pilot training at that place. A number of al Qaeda operatives had spent time in Arizona during the 1980s and early on 1990s. During 2000, President Neb Clinton and his advisers renewed diplomatic efforts to get Bin Ladin expelled from Transitional islamic state of afghanistan. They also renewed secret efforts with some of the Taliban's opponents-the Northern Alliance-to get enough intelligence to attack Bin Ladin directly. Diplomatic efforts centered on the new military regime in Pakistan, and they did not succeed. The efforts with the Northern Alliance revived an inconclusive and secret contend about whether the U.s. should have sides in Afghanistan's civil war and support the Taliban'southward enemies. The CIA likewise produced a plan to amend intelligence drove on al Qaeda, including the use of a small, unmanned plane with a video camera, known equally the Predator. Afterwards the October 2000 assault on the USS Cole, testify accumulated that it had been launched by al Qaeda operatives, only without confirmation that Bin Ladin had given the guild. The Taliban had before been warned that it would exist held responsible for another Bin Ladin attack on the U.s.. The CIA described its findings as a "preliminary judgment"; President Clinton and his chief advisers told us they were waiting for a conclusion before deciding whether to have military action. The military alternatives remained unappealing to them. The transition to the new Bush-league administration in late 2000 and early on 2001 took place with the Cole issue nonetheless pending. President George W. Bush-league and his chief advisers accepted that al Qaeda was responsible for the assault on the Cole, but did not like the options available for a response. Bin Ladin's inference may well have been that attacks, at to the lowest degree at the level of the Cole, were hazard free. The Bush administration began developing a new strategy with the stated goal of eliminating the al Qaeda threat within three to five years. During the jump and summer of 2001, U.S. intelligence agencies received a stream of warnings that al Qaeda planned, equally one study put it, "something very, very, very big." Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet told us, "The system was blinking cerise." Although Bin Ladin was determined to strike in the The states, as President Clinton had been told and President Bush was reminded in a Presidential Daily Cursory commodity briefed to him in August 2001, the specific threat data pointed overseas. Numerous precautions were taken overseas. Domestic agencies were not effectively mobilized. The threat did not receive national media attention comparable to the millennium alarm. While the Us continued disruption efforts around the world, its emerging strategy to eliminate the al Qaeda threat was to include an enlarged covert activity program in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan, too as diplomatic strategies for Transitional islamic state of afghanistan and Pakistan. The procedure culminated during the summertime of 2001 in a draft presidential directive and arguments almost the Predator aircraft, which was soon to be deployed with a missile of its own, then that it might exist used to effort to kill Bin Ladin or his chief lieutenants. At a September 4 meeting, President Bush's primary advisers approved the typhoon directive of the strategy and endorsed the concept of arming the Predator. This directive on the al Qaeda strategy was awaiting President Bush's signature on September eleven, 2001. Though the "planes functioning" was progressing, the plotters had issues of their own in 2001. Several possible participants dropped out; others could not gain entry into the U.s.a. (including one denial at a port of entry and visa denials not related to terrorism). I of the eventual pilots may have considered abandoning the planes operation. Zacarias Moussaoui, who showed up at a flight training schoolhouse in Minnesota, may accept been a candidate to replace him. Some of the vulnerabilities of the plotters get clear in retrospect. Moussaoui aroused suspicion for seeking fast-track preparation on how to pilot large jet airliners. He was arrested on August 16, 2001, for violations of immigration regulations. In tardily August, officials in the intelligence community realized that the terrorists spotted in Southeast Asia in January 2000 had arrived in the United States. These cases did non prompt urgent action. No one working on these tardily leads in the summer of 2001 connected them to the high level of threat reporting. In the words of i official, no analytic work foresaw the lightning that could connect the thundercloud to the ground. Every bit terminal preparations were under fashion during the summer of 2001, dissent emerged amidst al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan over whether to keep. The Taliban'due south primary, Mullah Omar, opposed attacking the United States. Although facing opposition from many of his senior lieutenants, Bin Ladin effectively overruled their objections, and the attacks went frontwards. September 11, 2001 The twenty-four hours began with the 19 hijackers getting through a security checkpoint system that they had evidently analyzed and knew how to defeat. Their success charge per unit in penetrating the system was xix for 19.They took over the 4 flights, taking reward of air crews and cockpits that were not prepared for the contingency of a suicide hijacking. On nine/11, the defense of U.S. air space depended on close interaction between two federal agencies: the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and North American Aerospace Defense Control (NORAD). Existing protocols on nine/eleven were unsuited in every respect for an assail in which hijacked planes were used every bit weapons. What ensued was a hurried effort to improvise a defense by civilians who had never handled a hijacked shipping that attempted to disappear, and by a military unprepared for the transformation of commercial aircraft into weapons of mass destruction. A shootdown authorization was not communicated to the NORAD air defense sector until 28 minutes after United 93 had crashed in Pennsylvania. Planes were scrambled, only ineffectively, as they did non know where to go or what targets they were to intercept. And one time the shootdown club was given, information technology was not communicated to the pilots. In curt, while leaders in Washington believed that the fighters circling above them had been instructed to "accept out" hostile aircraft, the just orders really conveyed to the pilots were to "ID blazon and tail." Like the national defence, the emergency response on 9/xi was necessarily improvised. In New York Urban center, the Fire Department of New York, the New York Police Department, the Port Dominance of New York and New Jersey, the building employees, and the occupants of the buildings did their best to cope with the effects of almost unimaginable events-unfolding furiously over 102 minutes. Casualties were virtually 100 percent at and higher up the impact zones and were very high amid first responders who stayed in danger every bit they tried to save lives. Despite weaknesses in preparations for disaster, failure to achieve unified incident control, and inadequate communications among responding agencies, all but approximately ane hundred of the thousands of civilians who worked below the impact zone escaped, often with aid from the emergency responders. At the Pentagon, while at that place were also problems of command and control, the emergency response was generally constructive. The Incident Command System, a formalized management structure for emergency response in identify in the National Uppercase Region, overcame the inherent complications of a response across local, state, and federal jurisdictions. Operational Opportunities Nosotros write with the benefit and handicap of hindsight. Nosotros are mindful of the danger of being unjust to men and women who made choices in atmospheric condition of uncertainty and in circumstances over which they frequently had trivial control. Yet, there were specific points of vulnerability in the plot and opportunities to disrupt it. Operational failures-opportunities that were not or could not be exploited by the organizations and systems of that time-included not watchlisting future hijackers Hazmi and Mihdhar, non trailing them later on they traveled to Bangkok, and non informing the FBI about one future hijacker's U.Due south. visa or his companion'southward travel to the United States; not sharing information linking individuals in the Cole attack to Mihdhar; not taking acceptable steps in time to detect Mihdhar or Hazmi in the Usa; non linking the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui, described every bit interested in flight training for the purpose of using an airplane in a terrorist human action, to the heightened indications of assault; not discovering imitation statements on visa applications; not recognizing passports manipulated in a fraudulent manner; not expanding no-fly lists to include names from terrorist watchlists; not searching airline passengers identified past the reckoner-based CAPPS screening organization; and not hardening aircraft cockpit doors or taking other measures to set for the possibility of suicide hijackings. GENERAL FINDINGS Since the plotters were flexible and resourceful, we cannot know whether whatsoever single pace or serial of steps would have defeated them. What nosotros can say with confidence is that none of the measures adopted by the U.S. government from 1998 to 2001 disturbed or even delayed the progress of the al Qaeda plot. Across the government, in that location were failures of imagination, policy, capabilities, and management. Imagination The most important failure was one of imagination. We practice not believe leaders understood the gravity of the threat. The terrorist danger from Bin Ladin and al Qaeda was non a major topic for policy debate amongst the public, the media, or in the Congress. Indeed, information technology barely came up during the 2000 presidential campaign. Al Qaeda'southward new make of terrorism presented challenges to U.Southward. governmental institutions that they were not well-designed to come across. Though top officials all told u.s. that they understood the danger, we believe there was dubiousness amid them as to whether this was just a new and particularly venomous version of the ordinary terrorist threat the United states of america had lived with for decades, or it was indeed radically new, posing a threat across any yet experienced. Every bit late as September 4, 2001, Richard Clarke, the White House staffer long responsible for counterterrorism policy coordination, asserted that the authorities had not even so made upward its mind how to answer the question: "Is al Qida a big deal?" A calendar week afterwards came the answer. Policy Terrorism was non the overriding national security concern for the U.S. regime under either the Clinton or the pre-nine/11 Bush administration. The policy challenges were linked to this failure of imagination. Officials in both the Clinton and Bush administrations regarded a total U.S. invasion of Transitional islamic state of afghanistan every bit practically inconceivable before 9/11. Capabilities Before 9/eleven, the Us tried to solve the al Qaeda problem with the capabilities it had used in the last stages of the Cold War and its firsthand aftermath. These capabilities were bereft. Lilliputian was done to expand or reform them. The CIA had minimal capacity to deport paramilitary operations with its own personnel, and information technology did non seek a large-scale expansion of these capabilities earlier 9/11. The CIA as well needed to improve its capability to collect intelligence from human agents. At no signal before ix/eleven was the Department of Defense fully engaged in the mission of countering al Qaeda, even though this was perhaps the nigh dangerous foreign enemy threatening the United states. America's homeland defenders faced outward. NORAD itself was barely able to retain any warning bases at all. Its planning scenarios occasionally considered the danger of hijacked aircraft existence guided to American targets, only simply aircraft that were coming from overseas. The about serious weaknesses in agency capabilities were in the domestic loonshit. The FBI did not have the capability to link the collective knowledge of agents in the field to national priorities. Other domestic agencies deferred to the FBI. FAA capabilities were weak. Any serious examination of the possibility of a suicide hijacking could have suggested changes to fix glaring vulnerabilities-expanding no-fly lists, searching passengers identified past the CAPPS screening organization, deploying federal air marshals domestically, hardening cockpit doors, alerting air crews to a different kind of hijacking possibility than they had been trained to await. Nonetheless the FAA did not adjust either its own grooming or grooming with NORAD to take business relationship of threats other than those experienced in the past. Direction The missed opportunities to thwart the nine/11 plot were also symptoms of a broader inability to accommodate the fashion regime manages bug to the new challenges of the xx-showtime century. Activeness officers should have been able to draw on all available cognition about al Qaeda in the authorities. Management should take ensured that information was shared and duties were conspicuously assigned beyond agencies, and across the strange-domestic divide. There were also broader management issues with respect to how top leaders set priorities and allocated resources. For instance, on December 4, 1998, DCI Tenet issued a directive to several CIA officials and the DDCI for Community Management, stating: "We are at war. I desire no resource or people spared in this try, either within CIA or the Community." The memorandum had little overall issue on mobilizing the CIA or the intelligence community. This episode indicates the limitations of the DCI'south authority over the direction of the intelligence community, including agencies within the Section of Defense. The U.Due south. government did non find a fashion of pooling intelligence and using information technology to guide the planning and consignment of responsibilities for articulation operations involving entities equally disparate as the CIA, the FBI, the State Department, the military, and the agencies involved in homeland security. SPECIFIC FINDINGS Unsuccessful Diplomacy Beginning in February 1997, and through September 11, 2001, the U.S. government tried to use diplomatic pressure to persuade the Taliban regime in Afghanistan to cease being a sanctuary for al Qaeda, and to expel Bin Ladin to a state where he could face justice. These efforts included warnings and sanctions, but they all failed. The U.S. government also pressed ii successive Pakistani governments to need that the Taliban cease providing a sanctuary for Bin Ladin and his organization and, failing that, to cut off their back up for the Taliban. Before nine/eleven, the United States could non observe a mix of incentives and pressure that would persuade Pakistan to reconsider its fundamental relationship with the Taliban. From 1999 through early 2001, the U.s.a. pressed the United Arab Emirates, one of the Taliban'southward only travel and fiscal outlets to the outside world, to break off ties and enforce sanctions, peculiarly those related to air travel to Afghanistan. These efforts achieved little earlier 9/xi. Saudi arabia has been a problematic ally in combating Islamic extremism. Before 9/11, the Saudi and U.S. governments did not fully share intelligence data or develop an adequate joint effort to track and disrupt the finances of the al Qaeda organization. On the other manus, government officials of Saudi arabia at the highest levels worked closely with top U.Southward. officials in major initiatives to solve the Bin Ladin problem with diplomacy. Lack of War machine Options In response to the request of policymakers, the military machine prepared an assortment of limited strike options for attacking Bin Ladin and his organization from May 1998 onward. When they briefed policymakers, the armed forces presented both the pros and cons of those strike options and the associated risks. Policymakers expressed frustration with the range of options presented. Post-obit the August 20, 1998, missile strikes on al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan and Sudan, both senior military officials and policymakers placed corking emphasis on actionable intelligence every bit the key factor in recommending or deciding to launch military action confronting Bin Ladin and his organization. They did not want to adventure significant collateral damage, and they did not want to miss Bin Ladin and thus brand the United States look weak while making Bin Ladin look stiff. On three specific occasions in 1998-1999, intelligence was accounted credible enough to warrant planning for possible strikes to impale Bin Ladin. But in each case the strikes did not go frontward, because senior policymakers did non regard the intelligence as sufficiently actionable to offset their assessment of the risks. The Manager of Central Intelligence, policymakers, and armed forces officials expressed frustration with the lack of actionable intelligence. Some officials inside the Pentagon, including those in the special forces and the counterterrorism policy office, likewise expressed frustration with the lack of military activity. The Bush-league administration began to develop new policies toward al Qaeda in 2001, merely military plans did not modify until after 9/eleven. Problems within the Intelligence Community The intelligence customs struggled throughout the 1990s and up to 9/11 to collect intelligence on and clarify the miracle of transnational terrorism. The combination of an overwhelming number of priorities, flat budgets, an outmoded structure, and bureaucratic rivalries resulted in an insufficient response to this new challenge. Many dedicated officers worked day and dark for years to slice together the growing torso of bear witness on al Qaeda and to empathize the threats. Yet, while in that location were many reports on Bin Laden and his growing al Qaeda organization, there was no comprehensive review of what the intelligence community knew and what it did not know, and what that meant. There was no National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism between 1995 and ix/11. Earlier nine/11, no agency did more to assault al Qaeda than the CIA. But there were limits to what the CIA was able to achieve past disrupting terrorist activities abroad and by using proxies to try to capture Bin Ladin and his lieutenants in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan. CIA officers were aware of those limitations. To put information technology simply, covert action was not a silverish bullet. It was of import to appoint proxies in Afghanistan and to build diverse capabilities so that if an opportunity presented itself, the CIA could human action on it. But for more than 3 years, through both the late Clinton and early Bush administrations, the CIA relied on proxy forces, and there was growing frustration within the CIA's Counterterrorist Eye and in the National Security Council staff with the lack of results. The evolution of the Predator and the push to aid the Northern Alliance were products of this frustration. Problems in the FBI From the time of the first World Trade Eye assail in 1993, FBI and Department of Justice leadership in Washington and New York became increasingly concerned about the terrorist threat from Islamist extremists to U.South. interests, both at abode and away. Throughout the 1990s, the FBI's counterterrorism efforts against international terrorist organizations included both intelligence and criminal investigations. The FBI'south arroyo to investigations was case-specific, decentralized, and geared toward prosecution. Significant FBI resources were devoted to after-the-fact investigations of major terrorist attacks, resulting in several prosecutions. The FBI attempted several reform efforts aimed at strengthening its ability to prevent such attacks, but these reform efforts failed to implement organization-wide institutional change. On September 11, 2001, the FBI was limited in several areas critical to an effective preventive counterterrorism strategy. Those working counterterrorism matters did then despite limited intelligence drove and strategic analysis capabilities, a express chapters to share data both internally and externally, bereft training, perceived legal barriers to sharing information, and inadequate resource. Permeable Borders and Immigration Controls At that place were opportunities for intelligence and police force enforcement to exploit al Qaeda's travel vulnerabilities. Considered collectively, the 9/11 hijackers included known al Qaeda operatives who could have been watchlisted; presented passports manipulated in a fraudulent manner; presented passports with suspicious indicators of extremism; made detectable false statements on visa applications; made false statements to border officials to proceeds entry into the United States; and violated clearing laws while in the U.s.a.. Neither the State Section's consular officers nor the Clearing and Naturalization Service'south inspectors and agents were e'er considered full partners in a national counterterrorism effort. Protecting borders was non a national security issue earlier nine/eleven. Permeable Aviation Security Hijackers studied publicly available materials on the aviation security arrangement and used items that had less metal content than a handgun and were most probable permissible. Though two of the hijackers were on the U.S.TIPOFF terrorist watchlist, the FAA did not use TIPOFF data. The hijackers had to trounce only one layer of security-the security checkpoint procedure. Fifty-fifty though several hijackers were selected for extra screening by the CAPPS arrangement, this led only to greater scrutiny of their checked baggage. In one case on board, the hijackers were faced with aircraft personnel who were trained to be nonconfrontational in the effect of a hijacking. Financing The 9/eleven attacks cost somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 to execute. The operatives spent more than $270,000 in the Us. Additional expenses included travel to obtain passports and visas, travel to the United States, expenses incurred by the plot leader and facilitators outside the United States, and expenses incurred by the people selected to be hijackers who ultimately did not participate. The conspiracy fabricated extensive use of banks in the United States. The hijackers opened accounts in their own names, using passports and other identification documents. Their transactions were unremarkable and essentially invisible amid the billions of dollars flowing effectually the world every twenty-four hour period. To date, we take not been able to determine the origin of the coin used for the 9/11 attacks. Al Qaeda had many sources of funding and a pre-ix/11 annual budget estimated at $30 million. If a particular source of funds had dried up, al Qaeda could hands take constitute enough money elsewhere to fund the attack. An Improvised Homeland Defense The civilian and military defenders of the nation's airspace-FAA and NORAD-were unprepared for the attacks launched against them. Given that lack of preparedness, they attempted and failed to improvise an constructive homeland defense against an unprecedented challenge. The events of that morning do non reverberate discredit on operational personnel. NORAD'southward Northeast Air Defence force Sector personnel reached out for information and made the all-time judgments they could based on the data they received. Individual FAA controllers, facility managers, and command center managers were creative and agile in recommending a nationwide alert, basis-stopping local traffic, ordering all aircraft nationwide to land, and executing that unprecedented social club flawlessly. At more senior levels, advice was poor. Senior military and FAA leaders had no effective communication with each other. The chain of command did non office well. The President could non reach some senior officials. The Secretary of Defence did not enter the chain of command until the morning's central events were over. Air National Guard units with dissimilar rules of appointment were scrambled without the knowledge of the President, NORAD, or the National Military Command Middle. Emergency Response The civilians, firefighters, police officers, emergency medical technicians, and emergency management professionals exhibited steady determination and resolve nether horrifying, overwhelming conditions on nine/11.Their actions saved lives and inspired a nation. Effective decisionmaking in New York was hampered past problems in command and command and in internal communications. Within the Fire Department of New York, this was true for several reasons: the magnitude of the incident was unforeseen; commanders had difficulty communicating with their units; more units were actually dispatched than were ordered by the chiefs; some units self-dispatched; and once units arrived at the World Trade Center, they were neither comprehensively deemed for nor coordinated. The Port Authority'due south response was hampered by the lack both of standard operating procedures and of radios capable of enabling multiple commands to respond to an incident in unified way. The New York Law Department, because of its history of mobilizing thousands of officers for major events requiring oversupply command, had a technical radio adequacy and protocols more easily adjusted to an incident of the magnitude of 9/11. Congress The Congress, similar the executive branch, responded slowly to the ascension of transnational terrorism as a threat to national security. The legislative co-operative adjusted picayune and did not restructure itself to address changing threats. Its attention to terrorism was episodic and splintered across several committees. The Congress gave little guidance to executive branch agencies on terrorism, did not reform them in any meaning way to meet the threat, and did not systematically perform robust oversight to identify, address, and attempt to resolve the many bug in national security and domestic agencies that became apparent in the aftermath of ix/xi. And so long as oversight is undermined by current congressional rules and resolutions, we believe the American people will not get the security they desire and need. The United States needs a stiff, stable, and capable congressional committee structure to give America's national intelligence agencies oversight, back up, and leadership. Are We Safer? Since 9/11, the Us and its allies have killed or captured a majority of al Qaeda'due south leadership; toppled the Taliban, which gave al Qaeda sanctuary in Afghanistan; and severely damaged the organization. Nonetheless terrorist attacks continue. Even as we have thwarted attacks, nearly everyone expects they will come. How can this be? The problem is that al Qaeda represents an ideological move, not a finite group of people. It initiates and inspires, fifty-fifty if it no longer directs. In this style information technology has transformed itself into a decentralized force. Bin Ladin may be limited in his power to organize major attacks from his hideouts. Withal killing or capturing him, while extremely important, would not end terror. His message of inspiration to a new generation of terrorists would go on. Because of offensive actions against al Qaeda since 9/xi, and defensive actions to improve homeland security, we believe we are safer today. But we are not safe. We therefore make the following recommendations that nosotros believe can make America safer and more secure. RECOMMENDATIONS Three years subsequently 9/xi, the national debate continues about how to protect our nation in this new era. We divide our recommendations into two basic parts: What to exercise, and how to do it. WHAT TO DO? A GLOBAL STRATEGY The enemy is not but "terrorism." It is the threat posed specifically by Islamist terrorism, by Bin Ladin and others who draw on a long tradition of farthermost intolerance within a minority strain of Islam that does not distinguish politics from religion, and distorts both. The enemy is not Islam, the great world faith, but a perversion of Islam. The enemy goes beyond al Qaeda to include the radical ideological motion, inspired in part by al Qaeda, that has spawned other terrorist groups and violence. Thus our strategy must match our means to two ends: dismantling the al Qaeda network and, in the long term, prevailing over the ideology that contributes to Islamist terrorism. The start phase of our post-9/11 efforts rightly included military activity to topple the Taliban and pursue al Qaeda. This work continues. Only long-term success demands the utilize of all elements of national power: affairs, intelligence, covert action, police enforcement, economic policy, strange aid, public diplomacy, and homeland defense. If we favor one tool while neglecting others, nosotros go out ourselves vulnerable and weaken our national effort. What should Americans look from their regime? The goal seems unlimited: Defeat terrorism anywhere in the world. But Americans accept also been told to expect the worst: An attack is probably coming; it may be more devastating still. Vague goals match an baggy movie of the enemy. Al Qaeda and other groups are popularly described as being all over the world, adaptable, resilient, needing niggling college-level organization, and capable of anything. It is an image of an almighty hydra of destruction. That image lowers expectations of government effectiveness. Information technology lowers them too far. Our study shows a determined and capable group of plotters. Nonetheless the group was frail and occasionally left vulnerable by the marginal, unstable people often attracted to such causes. The enemy made mistakes. The U.Due south. government was non able to capitalize on them. No president tin can promise that a catastrophic attack similar that of nine/11 will not happen once again. But the American people are entitled to expect that officials volition have realistic objectives, articulate guidance, and effective organization. They are entitled to run across standards for functioning and then they can approximate, with the help of their elected representatives, whether the objectives are being met. We propose a strategy with three dimensions: (1) assault terrorists and their organizations, (ii) prevent the continued growth of Islamist terrorism, and (3) protect against and ready for terrorist attacks. Assail Terrorists and Their Organizations Root out sanctuaries.The U.S. regime should place and prioritize bodily or potential terrorist sanctuaries and have realistic country or regional strategies for each, utilizing every element of national power and reaching out to countries that can help us. Strengthen long-term U.Due south. and international commitments to the futurity of Islamic republic of pakistan and Afghanistan. Confront problems with Kingdom of saudi arabia in the open and build a relationship beyond oil, a human relationship that both sides tin can defend to their citizens and includes a shared commitment to reform. Preclude the Connected Growth of Islamist Terrorism In October 2003, Secretary of Defence force Donald Rumsfeld asked if enough was beingness washed "to fashion a broad integrated plan to stop the next generation of terrorists." As part of such a plan, the U.S. government should Define the message and stand as an example of moral leadership in the world. To Muslim parents, terrorists like Bin Ladin have nothing to offer their children but visions of violence and death. America and its friends accept the advantage-our vision can offering a meliorate hereafter. Where Muslim governments, fifty-fifty those who are friends, practice not offer opportunity, respect the rule of law, or tolerate differences, then the United States needs to stand up for a better future. Communicate and defend American ideals in the Islamic world, through much stronger public diplomacy to reach more people, including students and leaders exterior of authorities. Our efforts here should be as strong as they were in combating airtight societies during the Common cold War. Offer an agenda of opportunity that includes support for public educational activity and economic openness. Develop a comprehensive coalition strategy confronting Islamist terrorism, using a flexible contact group of leading coalition governments and fashioning a common coalition approach on problems like the treatment of captured terrorists. Devote a maximum effort to the parallel task of countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Wait less from trying to dry up terrorist money and more than from post-obit the coin for intelligence, equally a tool to chase terrorists, understand their networks, and disrupt their operations. Protect confronting and Prepare for Terrorist Attacks Target terrorist travel, an intelligence and security strategy that the 9/11 story showed could be at least as powerful as the effort devoted to terrorist finance. Accost problems of screening people with biometric identifiers across agencies and governments, including our border and transportation systems, by designing a comprehensive screening system that addresses common bug and sets common standards. Every bit standards spread, this necessary and aggressive endeavor could dramatically strengthen the world's power to intercept individuals who could pose catastrophic threats. Chop-chop consummate a biometric entry-exit screening organization, one that likewise speeds qualified travelers. Fix standards for the issuance of birth certificates and sources of identification, such as driver'due south licenses. Develop strategies for neglected parts of our transportation security arrangement. Since 9/11, most 90 pct of the nation'south $five billion annual investment in transportation security has gone to aviation, to fight the last war. In aviation, forestall arguments most a new computerized profiling system from delaying vital improvements in the "no-wing" and "automatic selectee" lists. Likewise, give priority to the improvement of checkpoint screening. Determine, with leadership from the President, guidelines for gathering and sharing information in the new security systems that are needed, guidelines that integrate safeguards for privacy and other essential liberties. Underscore that as authorities power necessarily expands in certain ways, the burden of retaining such powers remains on the executive to demonstrate the value of such powers and ensure adequate supervision of how they are used, including a new board to oversee the implementation of the guidelines needed for gathering and sharing information in these new security systems. Base federal funding for emergency preparedness solely on risks and vulnerabilities, putting New York Urban center and Washington, D.C., at the top of the current list. Such assistance should non remain a plan for general revenue sharing or pork-barrel spending. Make homeland security funding contingent on the adoption of an incident command system to strengthen teamwork in a crunch, including a regional approach. Allocate more radio spectrum and improve connectivity for public safe communications, and encourage widespread adoption of newly developed standards for private-sector emergency preparedness-since the private sector controls 85 per centum of the nation's disquisitional infrastructure. HOW TO DO It? A DIFFERENT Mode OF ORGANIZING GOVERNMENT The strategy we have recommended is elaborate, even every bit presented here very briefly. To implement it will crave a government ameliorate organized than the one that exists today, with its national security institutions designed half a century agone to win the Cold War. Americans should not settle for incremental, advertizing hoc adjustments to a system created a generation agone for a world that no longer exists. Our detailed recommendations are designed to fit together. Their purpose is articulate: to build unity of effort across the U.S. government. Every bit i official now serving on the front lines overseas put it to usa: "I fight, one team." We call for unity of endeavour in five areas, beginning with unity of attempt on the challenge of counterterrorism itself: unifying strategic intelligence and operational planning confronting Islamist terrorists across the foreign-domestic carve up with a National Counterterrorism Center; unifying the intelligence customs with a new National Intelligence Director; unifying the many participants in the counterterrorism endeavor and their knowledge in a network-based data sharing system that transcends traditional governmental boundaries; unifying and strengthening congressional oversight to improve quality and accountability; and strengthening the FBI and homeland defenders. Unity of Endeavor: A National Counterterrorism Center The nine/11 story teaches the value of integrating strategic intelligence from all sources into joint operational planning-with both dimensions spanning the foreign-domestic split up. In some ways, since ix/11, joint work has gotten ameliorate. The effort of fighting terrorism has flooded over many of the usual bureau boundaries because of its sheer quantity and energy. Attitudes have changed. Simply the problems of coordination have multiplied. The Defence force Department alone has 3 unified commands (SOCOM, CENTCOM, and NORTHCOM) that deal with terrorism as ane of their master concerns. Much of the public commentary about the ix/11 attacks has focused on "lost opportunities." Though characterized as issues of "watchlisting," "data sharing," or "connecting the dots," each of these labels is likewise narrow. They describe the symptoms, not the affliction. Breaking the older mold of organization stovepiped purely in executive agencies, we suggest a National Counterterrorism Middle (NCTC) that would borrow the articulation, unified command concept adopted in the 1980s by the American military in a civilian agency, combining the articulation intelligence function alongside the operations work. The NCTC would build on the existing Terrorist Threat Integration Heart and would replace it and other terrorism "fusion centers" within the government. The NCTC would become the authoritative cognition bank, bringing information to carry on mutual plans. It should task collection requirements both within and outside the Usa. The NCTC should perform joint operational planning, assigning lead responsibilities to existing agencies and letting them direct the actual execution of the plans. Placed in the Executive Part of the President, headed by a Senate-confirmed official (with rank equal to the deputy head of a cabinet department) who reports to the National Intelligence Director, the NCTC would rails implementation of plans. It would be able to influence the leadership and the budgets of the counterterrorism operating arms of the CIA, the FBI, and the departments of Defence and Homeland Security. The NCTC should not exist a policymaking torso. Its operations and planning should follow the policy direction of the president and the National Security Quango. Unity of Effort: A National Intelligence Director Since long before 9/xi-and continuing to this 24-hour interval-the intelligence customs is not organized well for articulation intelligence piece of work. It does not utilize common standards and practices in reporting intelligence or in grooming experts overseas and at home. The expensive national capabilities for collecting intelligence have divided direction. The structures are also circuitous and too secret. The community's head-the Director of Central Intelligence-has at least iii jobs: running the CIA, coordinating a 15-agency confederation, and being the intelligence annotator-in-chief to the president. No 1 person tin do all these things. A new National Intelligence Managing director should be established with two master jobs: (ane) to oversee national intelligence centers that combine experts from all the drove disciplines against common targets- like counterterrorism or nuclear proliferation; and (2) to oversee the agencies that contribute to the national intelligence program, a task that includes setting common standards for personnel and it. The national intelligence centers would be the unified commands of the intelligence globe-a long-overdue reform for intelligence comparable to the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols law that reformed the organisation of national defense. The habitation services-such equally the CIA, DIA, NSA, and FBI-would organize, railroad train, and equip the best intelligence professionals in the world, and would handle the execution of intelligence operations in the field. This National Intelligence Managing director (NID) should be located in the Executive Office of the President and report directly to the president, yet be confirmed past the Senate. In add-on to overseeing the National Counterterrorism Centre described above (which will include both the national intelligence center for terrorism and the articulation operations planning effort), the NID should take three deputies: For strange intelligence (a deputy who as well would be the caput of the CIA) For defence force intelligence (likewise the under secretary of defense for intelligence) For homeland intelligence (also the executive assistant manager for intelligence at the FBI or the under secretary of homeland security for information analysis and infrastructure protection) The NID should receive a public appropriation for national intelligence, should have authority to hire and fire his or her intelligence deputies, and should exist able to prepare common personnel and information engineering policies beyond the intelligence customs. The CIA should concentrate on strengthening the collection capabilities of its clandestine service and the talents of its analysts, building pride in its cadre expertise. Secrecy stifles oversight, accountability, and information sharing. Unfortunately, all the electric current organizational incentives encourage overclassification. This residuum should alter; and equally a get-go, open data should exist provided virtually the overall size of bureau intelligence budgets. Unity of Effort: Sharing Information The U.S. government has access to a vast amount of information. Just it has a weak organisation for processing and using what it has. The system of "demand to know" should exist replaced past a system of "need to share." The President should atomic number 82 a government-wide endeavor to bring the major national security institutions into the information revolution, turning a mainframe system into a decentralized network. The obstacles are not technological. Official after official has urged us to call attention to bug with the unglamorous "back office" side of government operations. But no agency can solve the issues on its own-to build the network requires an effort that transcends old divides, solving common legal and policy issues in means that tin can assistance officials know what they tin and cannot practice. Again, in tackling information issues, America needs unity of effort. Unity of Effort: Congress Congress took too little action to suit itself or to restructure the executive branch to accost the emerging terrorist threat. Congressional oversight for intelligence-and counterterrorism-is dysfunctional. Both Congress and the executive need to do more to minimize national security risks during transitions between administrations. For intelligence oversight, we propose ii options: either a joint committee on the old model of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy or a unmarried committee in each house combining authorizing and appropriating committees. Our central bulletin is the same: the intelligence committees cannot carry out their oversight function unless they are fabricated stronger, and thereby have both clear responsibility and accountability for that oversight. Congress should create a single, principal indicate of oversight and review for homeland security. There should be 1 permanent standing committee for homeland security in each chamber. We propose reforms to speed up the nomination, financial reporting, security clearance, and confirmation process for national security officials at the commencement of an administration, and advise steps to brand certain that incoming administrations take the information they need. Unity of Effort: Organizing America'southward Defenses in the United States We have considered several proposals relating to the time to come of the domestic intelligence and counterterrorism mission. Adding a new domestic intelligence agency will not solve America's problems in collecting and analyzing intelligence within the Us. We do not recommend creating ane. Nosotros suggest the establishment of a specialized and integrated national security workforce at the FBI, consisting of agents, analysts, linguists, and surveillance specialists who are recruited, trained, rewarded, and retained to ensure the development of an institutional culture imbued with a deep expertise in intelligence and national security. At several points nosotros asked: Who has the responsibility for defending us at home? Responsibleness for America's national defense is shared by the Department of Defense, with its new Northern Command, and by the Department of Homeland Security.They must accept a clear delineation of roles, missions, and authority. The Department of Defence and its oversight committees should regularly appraise the adequacy of Northern Command's strategies and planning to defend confronting military threats to the homeland. The Department of Homeland Security and its oversight committees should regularly appraise the types of threats the state faces, in lodge to determine the adequacy of the government's plans and the readiness of the government to respond to those threats. * * * We call on the American people to recollect how we all felt on 9/11, to call up not only the unspeakable horror but how we came together as a nation-one nation. Unity of purpose and unity of effort are the manner nosotros volition defeat this enemy and brand America safer for our children and grandchildren. We look forward to a national fence on the merits of what we have recommended, and we will participate vigorously in that debate.

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Source: https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Exec.htm

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