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Failure: The Terrorist Attacks Against The United states on 11 September

Andrew Campbell

The terrorist attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001 represent a first-order intelligence failure. Despite the United States’ expenditure of $300 billion on defence, $30 billion on intelligence services and approximately $12 billion on counter-terrorism, spread over forty-five departments and agencies (including the the Central Intelligence Agency budget of $3 billion, its staff of 17,000 and the 80,000-strong U.S. intelligence community, neither the C.I.A., nor the Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I.), nor the National Security Agency (N.S.A.), nor the others of the forty-five government agencies and departments involved in counter-terrorism, nor the numerous “terrorism experts”, warned the United States’ government and people of the impending terrorist attacks, in which more people died than in all the previous international terrorist attacks in the last thirty-two years.

American intelligence organisations were unaware of the following:

• At least twenty foreign conspirators, with links to international terrorists and to Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda network, were travelling throughout the United States.

• Terrorists had entered and exited the United States, bypassing visa and passport requirements during the planning period.

• Terrorists used false passports, false driver’s licences, and identity theft (at least four of the terrorists had false identities).

• The terrorists conducted surveillance on airports, studied airport security and were sufficiently trained to commandeer the aircraft culminating in the murdering of the crews with the crudest, simplest and most effective of weapons: box cutters.

• The twenty identified conspirators, and their logistics team of thirty to fifty members, maintained exceptional operational and communications security; avoided detection both within and outside the United States; and did not come to the notice of the N.S.A. Although two of the terrorists were known to the C.I.A., which passed information to the F.B.I., the terrorists were not located.

• In December 2000, C.I.A. Director George Tenet claimed that the C.I.A. had helped “deliver to justice twenty-four terrorists world-wide — half with links to bin Laden”. Ironically, this is similar to the number of terrorists who launched the 11 September terrorist attacks.

• The terrorists had excellent tradecraft, which indicated intensive and extensive training, and used disinformation by communicating through open channels to lay false trails to confuse post-attack investigators.

• Copies of their operational annual Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants were left behind in two locations used by the terrorists, on computer disc and in printed form. The manual was not a secret document — it had surfaced in the United Kingdom, where a bin Laden supporter had been arrested in 1996, and again in May 2001. In March 1995, Belgian investigators discovered a C.D.-R.O.M. containing several versions of a manual for terrorism.

• A manual introduced as evidence in the World Trade Centre attack in 1993 was an updated version of an earlier manual found in the possession of the September 2001 terrorists. Another copy was reportedly seized in Jordan in December 1999. A manual on the operation of crop-dusting equipment was also discovered. Arabic flight manuals were also left in a rented car at Logan Airport, Massachusetts.

• These manuals were not classified, and they had been available to the C.I.A. and F.B.I. since 1993. Versions of the manual had been seized by police all over Europe, and in the Middle East they had the status of open source documents. They had been circulating amongst Middle East militants since the early 1990s.

• The terrorists demonstrated sophisticated knowledge of U.S. intelligence weaknesses and technical operations, and had the discipline and cohesion (there were no defections before, during or after the terrorist attacks) to avoid rousing interest in the planning stage in and outside the United States.

• Chillingly, the only opposition the terrorists encountered was from heroic passengers on United Airlines Flight 93, who at a height of 35,000 feet, attempted to fight the terrorists and thereby deflected the plane from hitting the White House or other targets. An additional indicator of collapse of early warning was the notification of the possible attack on the White House by civilian authorities rather than military or intelligence organisations.

• The last recorded words of the passengers were “let’s get them” — a fitting epitaph of bravery, and words which should have formed the basis of U.S. government policies, intelligence agencies and law enforcement.

The Myth of Surprise

The C.I.A. was established to avoid surprise attack on the United States. C.I.A. management was itself surprised when Iran collapsed in 1979, surprised when India conducted a nuclear test five years earlier, surprised when United States embassies were attacked in Africa in the late 1990s, surprised when Aldrich Ames carried the most sensitive secrets in plastic shopping bags from C.I.A. Headquarters to his Russian case officers and dead-drops.

The terrorist attacks were variously interpreted as another “Pearl Harbour” (Pearl Harbour was an attack by an enemy state against a military target) or “Twenty-First Century Warfare”. They raised plaintive questioning as to the reasons for hatred of the United States.

However, the terrorists’ attacks were consistent with Islamic conceptions of the sacred nature of terror dating back over a thousand years, and were consistent with their conspiratorial projections of personal, international and global problems onto the United States. Blaming the “Great Satan”, the United States, has been the defining feature of Middle East politics since the mid-1960s. Anti-U.S. sentiment reached its apogee with bin Laden.

The C.I.A. and F.B.I. knew from open source information of bin Laden’s obsession with the United States and with planes as weapons of mass destruction. A terrorist conspiracy was uncovered in 1995 in the Philippines (Operation Bojinka), which involved hijacking seven airliners simultaneously at various places over the Pacific and flying them into at least two major federal buildings in the United States, including C.I.A. and F.B.I. headquarters. Bin Laden’s obsession with the destruction of government and military installations and buildings — as evidenced by the instruction of Al-Qaeda members in the destruction of buildings at Al-Qaeda training camps — was also open source information.

The terrorists’ advantage of surprise and suicide should not have come as a surprise; there had been simultaneous (occurring within nine minutes of each other) surprise and suicide terrorist attacks before, starting with the Lebanese kamikaze truck-bomb assault on the U.S. Marines’ barracks in 1983, and the 1998 suicide bomb attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Although four hundred miles apart, these acts were as co-ordinated as the suicide bombing of the U.S.S. Cole (October 2000) in Aden, Yemen.

The United States has had more historical experience with surprise attacks and kamikaze attacks than any other nation.

Presidential Leadership Failure — Bill Clinton

C.I.A. Director Tenet and the C.I.A. as a whole have been the target for the most sustained criticism. However, criticism which focusses exclusively on the C.I.A. overlooks a chronic and seamless web of policy failure, intelligence failure and failure of presidential leadership; the terrorist attacks of 11 September represent a multifaceted failure of U.S. policy.

Bill Clinton’s election in 1992 marked a downward trend despite the efflorescence of terrorist attacks in the period from 1993 to the present. Clinton was pre-occupied with his personal and domestic policy agenda. His former political adviser recorded how he attempted to arouse Clinton’s interest after the first World Trade Centre (W.T.C.) bombing in 1993, but failed to do so.

Clinton did not visit the site of the 1993 W.T.C. bombing, and gave a speech in Baltimore which barely mentioned the terrorist attack. He warned against “over-reacting” and described the attacks as “something very stupid”. Addressing the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations Charter, Clinton made passing references to terrorism and did not pledge retaliation, and his remarks went unnoticed. Clinton was preoccupied with his grand jury testimony in August 1998, when he authorised the low-risk and low-damage Cruise missile attacks in Afghanistan and the Sudan. The purpose, timing and efficacy of the attacks were widely questioned.

In 1995 and 1998, Clinton issued presidential directives which, according to the C.I.A., were blueprints for U.S. counter-terrorism policy. These directives, backed up by legislation, defined terrorism as a crime and set up procedures to apprehend and punish terrorists worldwide. This did not happen.

Political Correctness in the C.I.A.

Political correctness in the C.I.A. reached its height under the Clinton Administration and the agency’s directors, John Deutsch (till December 1996) and Tenet (Deutsch’s successor). C.I.A. officers were compelled to attend diversity and sensitivity training sessions. The C.I.A. in this period had its first Gay and Lesbian Pride Month. Tenet, on becoming director, named his personal assistant for Diversity Plans and Programmes. To oversee these programmes, he created an Agency Diversity Council and a Community Diversity Issues Board across the thirteen agencies of the U.S. intelligence community. Senior intelligence officers were reportedly compelled to join workshops and to make colourful “diversity quilts”. A C.I.A. officer reported that management “made us sit and talk to groups about how it feels when someone makes an insensitive remark”.

In 1999, Tenet released new diversity guidelines, and gay activists within the C.I.A. formed A.N.G.L.E. (the Agency Network of Gay and Lesbian Employees). The C.I.A. Equal Employment and Opportunity Office officially recognised A.N.G.L.E. after Tenet issued new diversity guidelines during the same year. In an annual report to Congress, Tenet wrote that “the C.I.A. conducted Heritage/ History Month programmes for the following special emphasis groups: Hispanic, American Indian, Black, Asian and Pacific Islander, Deaf and Hard of Hearing, People with Disabilities and Women”.

While Tenet and C.I.A. management were institutionalising political correctness, Al-Qaeda members were plotting and praying in Britain, France and Germany and within the United States to unleash the most ferocious terrorist assaults in American and world history.

Human Rights

Back in 1995, responding to pressure from left-leaning U.S. Congressional elements, Deutsch issued new guidelines concerning the recruitment of agents who may have been involved in human rights violations (a so-called “human rights scrub”). This process shut down many ongoing C.I.A. operations for periods varying from six months to a year. The beneficiaries were bin Laden and Al-Qaeda.

Complex procedures for headquarters approval of recruitments created a risk-averse culture, resulting in diminution of morale and resignations, including the Chief of Central Eurasia Division and Chief of Station in Amman and other officers who were skilled in Arabic languages and had invaluable operational experience. Unilateral counter-terrorist operations were restricted. The C.I.A. was increasingly reliant on liaison sources.

Many C.I.A. officers resigned. Concerned with the consequences, one of the C.I.A.’s most gifted officers wrote, “America’s counter-terrorist programme in the Middle East and environs is a myth.” Another former official claimed, “The C.I.A. probably doesn’t have a single truly qualified Arabic-speaking officer of Middle Eastern background who can play a believable Muslim fundamentalist.” Other critics claim that the C.I.A. was dominated by the Directorate of Operations (D.O.), that there was a chronic shortage of political will and leadership and that an understanding of foreign cultures was absent.

The Failure of U.S. Counter-Terrorist Policy: The Myth of “Disruption”

U.S. counter-terrorist policy prior to 11 September was based on “containment” or the orderly management of terrorist crises by a policy of “disruption” of terrorist incidents, mostly conducted through liaison services. Counter-terrorism was regarded as a “game”, in which terrorists were outwitted: a remarkable fallacy, given the fact that Islamic terrorists originate in Middle East cultures with a terrorist history dating back to the Assassins of the thirteenth century.

The whole disruption policy lacked three elements: deterrence, defeat and destruction. Tactically, disruption had successes which were skilfully publicised; strategically it was a resounding failure.

For over thirteen years, U.S. administrations and the C.I.A. relied on legalistic interpretations of terrorism. The interpretation of terrorism as a criminal act, involving the capture and appearance of terrorists before grand juries and other courts, was fanciful in the extreme. Given bin Laden’s long record of media statements and murderous threats against the United States and the West, the United States cannot say it was not warned.

The conception of terrorism as a criminal act denied the fundamental reality as seen by the terrorists themselves, namely, that terrorism is warfare. The numerous and complex prosecutorial and judicial investigations and indictments of bin Laden and Al-Qaeda for involvement in terrorist operations from 1993 to 2000 did not lead to any diminution of bin Laden’s fervour or Al-Qaeda operations. These procedures followed Western rules; the terrorists were, however, playing by Middle Eastern rules. The United States government and its agencies were seeking a level of “evidence” and “proof” that was rarely, if ever, obtainable.

The Demise of the C.I.A. Counter-Terrorism Centre

The establishment of the C.I.A. Counter-Terrorism Centre (C.T.C.) in 1986 was a highly significant initiative and was staffed by brilliant and dedicated officers.

However, counter-terrorism was not a favoured career path within the C.I.A. The C.T.C. ran into powerful opposition from the D.O., which did not provide the necessary co-operation and synergy of effort and objectives that characterises effective counter-terrorism. The staff of the C.T.C. was dedicated and highly professional but had to endure bureaucratic vicissitudes, delays, obstructionism and indifference.

The C.T.C. was not authorised to recruit agents. This task was left to the (not always enthusiastic) D.O. and its Middle East stations. The C.T.C. also encountered the usual translator shortages. Within the first six months, it still had only two Arabic speakers. Despite these difficulties, the C.T.C. was an overdue and impressive attempt to centralise counter-terrorism, but it lacked the necessary support from the highest levels of the C.I.A.

Early Warning — The 1993 World Trade Centre Attack

The 1993 World Trade Centre bombing, which involved the planting of a 1,000-pound bomb in a car parked in an underground garage parked under the W.T.C., was commonly and wrongly assessed as a “one-off” event. However, it is clear that the terrorists regarded it as a template for future attacks.

In 1993, one of the convicted terrorists vowed to an F.B.I. official that the task would be finished. The terrorist objectives in 1993 included toppling one of the W.T.C.’s twin towers onto the other, whilst releasing a plume of cyanide gas. Consistently with Al-Qaeda practice, the later terrorists returned to complete their mission.

The F.B.I.

The F.B.I. terrorism investigations were governed by over forty pages of foreign intelligence and domestic terrorism guidelines, set down by the Attorney-General. There was reportedly confusion amongst F.B.I. staff concerning their authority to pursue investigations, due to the vague and conflicting nature of the two sets of guidelines which reportedly deterred the F.B.I. from taking prompt action against suspected terrorists.

The shortage of linguists and translators in the C.I.A. and F.B.I. had a direct impact in counter-terrorist investigations, especially in relation to real-time response. All data collected under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act required the highest security clearance. Terrorists used unique dialects and code words, and the necessity to have security cleared linguists and translators was highly dysfunctional.

The El Sayir Nosair case is illustrative. The F.B.I. failed to translate papers found in this terrorist’s home, as the F.B.I. New York office did not have an Arabic translator available. When the translation was completed, the all-important name “Al-Qaeda” was not recognised as it had been translated as “the basis” rather than the correct form: “the base”. In September 2001, U.S. intelligence agencies did not have a single speaker of Pashtu, the language used by the Taliban.

Multiculturalism and Political Correctness

The terrorists swam in the fecund sea of multicultural tolerance. F.B.I. investigations into Islamic terrorism were stifled by claims of minority and religious persecution, and threats of legal action for alleged harassment. A phalanx of ethics lawyers, academics and civil libertarians regarded F.B.I. investigations as breaches of constitutional and human rights. Investigators were neutralised by fears of legal action, which were designed to intimidate and deter investigators.

An infrastructure of mosques, fraudulent charity organisations, immigration and refugee ethnic lobbies and strategically placed assets in universities facilitated the terrorists’ operations, and provided the necessary fog for them to plan operations. There are eight million Muslims in the United States, and there is compelling evidence that Islamic “charity” and “refugee” organisations provided the necessary infrastructure and facilitated the 1993 and 2001 W.T.C. terrorist attacks.

Within the United States a climate of pre-terrorist attitude formation had developed for over a decade. Islamic spokesmen and propagandists manipulated a sympathetic and politically correct media and gullible politicians concerned with winning ethnic approval and votes. Islamic spokesmen invoked the “human rights and [the] multicultural defence” to deter legitimate investigations. Political correctness inhibited and restricted aggressive intelligence probes and investigations into the terrorist infrastructures operating in and parallel to Muslim communities in the United States.

Immigration Laxity — The Case of Mohamed Atta

The principal terrorist Mohamed Atta obtained a visa at the U.S. Consulate in Berlin on 18 May 2000. He then travelled to Prague, where he was observed in a meeting with an identified Iraqi intelligence officer, Colonel Muham- mad Khalil Ibrahim al-Hiani, who specialised in covert operations and principally in assassinations. Atta flew to the United States, alighted in Newark (New Jersey) on 3 June, and was admitted to the United States on a temporary visitor’s visa for six months. He provided a false accommodation address on immigration documents, and he overstayed his visa by thirty days. On 4 June 2001, he flew to Spain, a country which is host to many Al-Qaeda cells. (Early in January 2001, he had flown from Madrid to Miami and, despite overstaying his visa, was readmitted to the United States for an additional six months.)

In Venice, Florida, Atta attended the Hoffman Flying School for two months. On 7 July he revisited Spain. He returned to the United States on 19 July. He listed an additional false address on his immigration papers. His visa was extended to 12 November. On 6 August, Atta used a credit card to rent the first of three cars he rented over a one-week period. From that day, he drove a total of 2,204 miles. On 11 September he boarded United Airlines Flight 767, bound for Los Angeles, and crashed it into the North Tower of the World Trade Centre.

Atta was able to make seven foreign trips in 2000-01, all with some degree of operational significance; to rendezvous with an identified Iraqi intelligence officer in June 2000 and early April 2001; to enter the United States freely, with all restrictions waived; and to avoid attracting the attention of either the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (I.N.S.) or F.B.I. probings.

Ramzi Yousef, the 1993 W.T.C. terrorist, entered the United States with a false passport and was caught by the I.N.S. He was, however, soon released, as the government lacked space in the local holding facility. Subsequently he fled to Pakistan, where he was arrested after a million-dollar international manhunt spanning three continents. Sheikh Omar Rabdul Rahman, mastermind of the 1993 W.T.C. attack, was permitted to enter the United States whilst head of the Egyptian terrorist organisation, Al Gamat Al Islamiya.

Adih el-Hage, a top Al-Qaeda military commander and secretary to bin Laden, was also permitted to enter the United States. Senior leaders of the Egyptian Jihad, Tunisian and Algerian radical Islamic organisations, leaders and spokesmen for the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (the prototype of Islamic terrorist organisations), received green cards or U.S. citizenship. The I.N.S. failed to prevent the entry of two of those involved in the W.T.C./Pentagon attacks, despite that fact that they were wanted for questioning by the F.B.I., for association with bin Laden. Only sixteen of the twenty hijackers entered the United States legally. All of the hijackers had overstayed their visa time.

U.S. Aviation Security

In 1996, President Clinton charged Vice-President Al Gore to head a Commission to improve airline security. The resultant Commission was criticised for focusing on civil liberties rather than effectiveness. The Commission concluded: “No profiling of passengers should contain or be based on race, religion or national origin.” The Federal Aviation Administration decided in 1999 to seal its passenger screening system from law enforcement databases. This procedure prevented the F.B.I. from notifying airlines that suspected terrorists were on board aircraft.

Failure in Australia

In 1993, the trial in the United States of Islamic extremists linked to the 1993 W.T.C. bombing revealed that there had been numerous telephone contacts contacts with supporters in New South Wales from late 1992 to early 1993, prior to and immediately after the 1993 W.T.C. attack.

Terrorists have been shielded by the State and Federal policy of multi- culturalism and a plethora of State and Federal anti-discrimination laws (reinforced by vociferous ethnic lobbies and radical academics and lawyers, who promise or threaten withdrawal of the prize of the ethnic vote; a specially potent threat in  marginal and tightly contested electorates). Law enforcement and intelligence personnel are accused by ethnic spokesmen of engaging in “harassment of religious freedom”, “racism”, “stereotyping” and labelling of “minorities”. They also face the threat of legal action by ethnic complainants and investigations from State and Federal departments.

The Australian Muslim population comprises a multitude of distinct ethnic groups with over fifty-five languages. Approximately thirty-seven ethnic backgrounds are represented in the Australian Muslim Community. The political, policy and operational problems of monitoring and investigating such a diverse number of linguistic and religious and cultural groupings, and the fifteen terrorist groups and organisations that operate covertly in ethnic communities, are daunting and ominous.

Australia (as well as America) needs a national counter-terrorist organisation dedicated to detect, deter and destroy terrorist threats in Australia and the growing covert Islamic networks throughout the region. If political will and leadership is lacking, Australia too faces failure.

 

 

 

 

National Observer No. 51 - Summer 2002