​i Want to Do a 9/11 Again

THE 9/11 Commission REPORT Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States EXECUTIVE SUMMARY We present the narrative of this written report and the recommendations that flow from it to the President of the U.s., the U.s. Congress, and the American people for their consideration. 10 Commissioners-v Republicans and five Democrats chosen by elected leaders from our nation's majuscule at a time of great partisan partition-have come together to present this report without dissent. Nosotros accept come together with a unity of purpose because our nation demands it. September xi, 2001, was a 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 morning of September 11, 2001, the U.s.a. 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 Tower of the Globe Merchandise Center in Lower Manhattan. At nine:03, a second airliner striking the South Tower. Fire and fume billowed upward. Steel, drinking glass, ash, and bodies cruel below. The Twin Towers, where up to 50,000 people worked each 24-hour interval, both collapsed less than ninety minutes afterwards. At 9:37 that same morning, a third airliner slammed into the western confront of the Pentagon. At 10:03, a fourth airliner crashed in a field in southern Pennsylvania. It had been aimed at the U.s. Capitol or the White House, and was forced downwardly by heroic passengers armed with the knowledge that America was under attack. More than 2,600 people died at the Globe Trade Center; 125 died at the Pentagon; 256 died on the iv planes. The death toll surpassed that at Pearl Harbor in December 1941. This immeasurable pain was inflicted by 19 young Arabs acting at the behest of Islamist extremists headquartered in distant Transitional islamic state of afghanistan. Some had been in the United States for more than a year, mixing with the rest of the population. Though iv had preparation as pilots, well-nigh 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 4 planes and turned them into deadly guided missiles. Why did they exercise this? How was the attack planned and conceived? How did the U.Due south. government fail to conceptualize and forestall information technology? What can we do in the future to prevent similar acts of terrorism? A Shock, Not a Surprise The ix/11 attacks were a shock, but they should non have come equally a surprise. Islamist extremists had given enough of warning that they meant to kill Americans indiscriminately and in large numbers. Although Usama Bin Ladin himself would non emerge as a signal threat until the tardily 1990s, the threat of Islamist terrorism grew over the decade. In February 1993, a group led by Ramzi Yousef tried to bring down the World Trade Center with a truck bomb. They killed 6 and wounded a thousand. Plans by Omar Abdel Rahman and others to accident upward the Holland and Lincoln tunnels and other New York City landmarks were frustrated when the plotters were arrested. In October 1993, Somali tribesmen shot downwardly U.S. helicopters, killing 18 and wounding 73 in an incident that came to exist known equally "Blackness Hawk down." Years later it would be learned that those Somali tribesmen had received help from al Qaeda. In early 1995, police in Manila uncovered a plot past Ramzi Yousef to blow up a dozen U.S. airliners while they were flight over the Pacific. In November 1995, a machine bomb exploded outside the function of the U.S. program manager for the Saudi National Guard in Riyadh, killing five Americans and two others. In June 1996, a truck bomb demolished the Khobar Towers apartment complex in Dhahran, Saudi arabia, killing nineteen U.Southward. servicemen and wounding hundreds. The attack was carried out primarily past Saudi Hezbollah, an organization that had received assist from the government of Islamic republic of iran. Until 1997, the U.S. intelligence community viewed Bin Ladin as a financier of terrorism, not equally a terrorist leader. In February 1998, Usama Bin Ladin and four others issued a self-styled fatwa, publicly declaring that information technology was God'southward decree that every Muslim should try his utmost to impale any American, military or civilian, anywhere in the world, because of American "occupation" of Islam'due south holy places and aggression confronting Muslims. In August 1998, Bin Ladin'due south grouping, al Qaeda, carried out near-simultaneous truck bomb 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. In December 1999, Jordanian constabulary foiled a plot to bomb hotels and other sites frequented by American tourists, and a U.Due south. Customs agent arrested Ahmed Ressam at the U.South. Canadian edge as he was smuggling in explosives intended for an attack on Los Angeles International Airport. In Oct 2000, an al Qaeda team in Aden, Yemen, used a motorboat filled with explosives to blow a hole in the side of a destroyer, the USS Cole, almost sinking the vessel and killing 17 American sailors. The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon were far more elaborate, precise, and destructive than whatsoever of these earlier assaults. Just by September 2001, the executive branch of the U.S. government, the Congress, the news media, and the American public had received clear alert 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 Us? We now know that these attacks were carried out past various groups of Islamist extremists. The 9/11 attack was driven by Usama Bin Ladin. In the 1980s, young Muslims from around the world went to Afghanistan to join as volunteers in a jihad (or holy struggle) against the Soviet Union. A wealthy Saudi, Usama Bin Ladin, was one of them. Following the defeat of the Soviets in the tardily 1980s, Bin Ladin and others formed al Qaeda to mobilize jihads elsewhere. The history, culture, and body of beliefs from which Bin Ladin shapes and spreads his bulletin are largely unknown to many Americans. Seizing on symbols of Islam's by greatness, he promises to restore pride to people who consider themselves the victims of successive strange masters. He uses cultural and religious allusions to the holy Qur'an and some of its interpreters. He appeals to people disoriented by cyclonic change as they face modernity and globalization. His rhetoric selectively draws from multiple sources-Islam, history, and the region's political and economic malaise. Bin Ladin also stresses grievances confronting the U.s.a. widely shared in the Muslim world. He inveighed against the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi arabia, which is the home of Islam'south holiest sites, and confronting other U.S. policies in the Eye East. Upon this political and ideological foundation, Bin Ladin built over the grade of a decade a dynamic and lethal organization. He congenital an infrastructure and organization in Afghanistan that could concenter, train, and employ recruits against e'er more ambitious targets. He rallied new zealots and new coin with each demonstration of al Qaeda'southward capability. He had forged a close alliance with the Taliban, a government providing sanctuary for al Qaeda. By September eleven, 2001, al Qaeda possessed leaders able to evaluate, corroborate, 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 exist helping them; an intelligence endeavor to gather required information and form assessments of enemy strengths and weaknesses; the power to motion people dandy distances; and the ability to raise and move the money necessary to finance an attack. 1998 to September eleven, 2001 The August 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania established al Qaeda every bit a potent antagonist of the The states. Later on launching prowl missile strikes against al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan and Sudan in retaliation for the embassy bombings, the Clinton assistants applied diplomatic pressure to try to persuade the Taliban regime in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan to expel Bin Ladin. The assistants also devised covert operations to utilize CIA-paid foreign agents to capture or kill Bin Ladin and his primary lieutenants. These actions did not cease Bin Ladin or dislodge al Qaeda from its sanctuary. By tardily 1998 or early 1999, Bin Ladin and his advisers had agreed on an idea brought to them by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) called the "planes operation." It would somewhen culminate in the 9/11 attacks. Bin Ladin and his chief 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 as KSM, to carry out worldwide terrorist operations. KSM claims that his original plot was fifty-fifty grander than those carried out on nine/eleven-ten planes would assault targets on both the Eastward and West coasts of the United States. This plan was modified by Bin Ladin, KSM said, attributable to its calibration and complication. Bin Ladin provided KSM with four initial operatives for suicide plane attacks within the United States, and in the fall of 1999 training for the attacks began. New recruits included 4 from a cell of departer Muslim extremists who had amassed together in Hamburg, Germany. One became the tactical commander of the operation in the United States: Mohamed Atta. U.S. intelligence ofttimes picked upwards reports of attacks planned past al Qaeda. Working with foreign security services, the CIA broke up some al Qaeda cells. The cadre of Bin Ladin'due south organization nevertheless remained intact. In December 1999, news about the arrests of the terrorist prison cell in Jordan and the arrest of a terrorist at the U.Due south.-Canadian border became part of a "millennium alert." The authorities was galvanized, and the public was on alert for any possible attack. In January 2000, the intense intelligence effort glimpsed and then lost sight of two 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 two al Qaeda operatives had spent little time in the Westward and spoke little, if any, English language, it is plausible that they or KSM would have tried to identify, in advance, a friendly contact in the United States. We explored suspicions nigh whether these ii operatives had a support network of accomplices in the United States. The evidence is sparse-simply not there for some cases, more than worrisome in others. We practise know that shortly after arriving in California, the ii al Qaeda operatives sought out and plant a group of ideologically like-minded Muslims with roots in Yemen and Saudi arabia, individuals mainly associated with a young Yemeni and others who attended a mosque in San Diego. After a cursory stay in Los Angeles about which we know little, the al Qaeda operatives lived openly in San Diego under their true names. They managed to avert alluring much attention. By the summer of 2000, 3 of the four Hamburg cell members had arrived on the E Declension of the U.s.a. and had begun pilot grooming. In early 2001, a fourth future hijacker pilot, Hani Hanjour, journeyed to Arizona with another operative, Nawaf al Hazmi, and conducted his refresher pilot grooming in that location. A number of al Qaeda operatives had spent time in Arizona during the 1980s and early 1990s. During 2000, President Nib Clinton and his advisers renewed diplomatic efforts to go Bin Ladin expelled from Transitional islamic state of afghanistan. They also renewed secret efforts with some of the Taliban'south opponents-the Northern Brotherhood-to get enough intelligence to attack Bin Ladin directly. Diplomatic efforts centered on the new armed forces authorities in Pakistan, and they did not succeed. The efforts with the Northern Alliance revived an inconclusive and secret debate about whether the United States should take sides in Afghanistan's civil war and back up the Taliban'southward enemies. The CIA as well produced a plan to meliorate intelligence collection on al Qaeda, including the utilize of a small, unmanned airplane with a video camera, known equally the Predator. After the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole, show accumulated that it had been launched by al Qaeda operatives, just without confirmation that Bin Ladin had given the social club. The Taliban had before been warned that it would be held responsible for another Bin Ladin attack on the United States. The CIA described its findings as a "preliminary judgment"; President Clinton and his chief advisers told us they were waiting for a decision earlier deciding whether to accept military activity. The military alternatives remained unappealing to them. The transition to the new Bush administration in late 2000 and early on 2001 took place with the Cole issue still pending. President George W. Bush and his main advisers accepted that al Qaeda was responsible for the attack on the Cole, simply did non 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 risk free. The Bush assistants began developing a new strategy with the stated goal of eliminating the al Qaeda threat inside iii to five years. During the leap and summer of 2001, U.South. intelligence agencies received a stream of warnings that al Qaeda planned, as one report put it, "something very, very, very big." Director of Primal Intelligence George Tenet told us, "The system was blinking ruby-red." Although Bin Ladin was determined to strike in the Us, as President Clinton had been told and President Bush was reminded in a Presidential Daily Cursory article briefed to him in Baronial 2001, the specific threat information 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 warning. While the United States continued disruption efforts around the world, its emerging strategy to eliminate the al Qaeda threat was to include an enlarged covert action program in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan, as well every bit diplomatic strategies for Afghanistan and Pakistan. The process culminated during the summer of 2001 in a draft presidential directive and arguments about the Predator aircraft, which was presently to be deployed with a missile of its own, so that it might be used to attempt to kill Bin Ladin or his chief lieutenants. At a September 4 meeting, President Bush'southward chief advisers approved the draft 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 xi, 2001. Though the "planes operation" was progressing, the plotters had bug of their own in 2001. Several possible participants dropped out; others could not gain entry into the Usa (including one denial at a port of entry and visa denials not related to terrorism). One of the eventual pilots may accept considered abandoning the planes operation. Zacarias Moussaoui, who showed upward at a flying training schoolhouse in Minnesota, may have been a candidate to supersede him. Some of the vulnerabilities of the plotters get articulate in retrospect. Moussaoui aroused suspicion for seeking fast-track training on how to pilot large jet airliners. He was arrested on August 16, 2001, for violations of clearing regulations. In late 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 not prompt urgent action. No 1 working on these belatedly leads in the summer of 2001 connected them to the high level of threat reporting. In the words of one official, no analytic work foresaw the lightning that could connect the thundercloud to the ground. As final preparations were under way during the summer of 2001, dissent emerged amongst al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan over whether to go on. The Taliban's chief, Mullah Omar, opposed attacking the Us. Although facing opposition from many of his senior lieutenants, Bin Ladin finer overruled their objections, and the attacks went forwards. September 11, 2001 The day 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 xix.They took over the four flights, taking reward of air crews and cockpits that were non prepared for the contingency of a suicide hijacking. On ix/11, the defence of U.South. air infinite depended on close interaction betwixt two federal agencies: the Federal Aviation Assistants (FAA) and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). Existing protocols on 9/xi were unsuited in every respect for an assail in which hijacked planes were used as weapons. What ensued was a hurried effort to improvise a defense force by civilians who had never handled a hijacked aircraft that attempted to disappear, and by a military unprepared for the transformation of commercial aircraft into weapons of mass destruction. A shootdown dominance was not communicated to the NORAD air defence force sector until 28 minutes after United 93 had crashed in Pennsylvania. Planes were scrambled, simply ineffectively, equally they did not know where to become or what targets they were to intercept. And in one case the shootdown order was given, it was non communicated to the pilots. In brusque, while leaders in Washington believed that the fighters circling above them had been instructed to "have out" hostile aircraft, the only orders actually conveyed to the pilots were to "ID type and tail." Like the national defense, the emergency response on 9/11 was necessarily improvised. In New York City, the Burn down Department of New York, the New York Constabulary Department, the Port Authorization of New York and New Jersey, the edifice employees, and the occupants of the buildings did their all-time to cope with the effects of almost unimaginable events-unfolding furiously over 102 minutes. Casualties were most 100 per centum at and above the impact zones and were very high among first responders who stayed in danger every bit they tried to salvage lives. Despite weaknesses in preparations for disaster, failure to achieve unified incident command, and inadequate communications amid responding agencies, all just approximately ane hundred of the thousands of civilians who worked below the impact zone escaped, often with help from the emergency responders. At the Pentagon, while at that place were also bug of command and command, the emergency response was generally effective. The Incident Control System, a formalized management construction for emergency response in place in the National Capital Region, overcame the inherent complications of a response beyond local, state, and federal jurisdictions. Operational Opportunities We write with the do good and handicap of hindsight. We are mindful of the danger of being unjust to men and women who made choices in weather condition of doubt and in circumstances over which they ofttimes had niggling control. Even so, there were specific points of vulnerability in the plot and opportunities to disrupt information technology. Operational failures-opportunities that were not or could not exist exploited by the organizations and systems of that time-included non watchlisting future hijackers Hazmi and Mihdhar, non abaft them after they traveled to Bangkok, and not informing the FBI almost one time to come hijacker's U.Southward. visa or his companion's travel to the The states; non sharing information linking individuals in the Cole assail to Mihdhar; non taking acceptable steps in time to find Mihdhar or Hazmi in the United states of america; not linking the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui, described as interested in flying training for the purpose of using an plane in a terrorist human action, to the heightened indications of assault; non discovering false statements on visa applications; non recognizing passports manipulated in a fraudulent manner; not expanding no-wing lists to include names from terrorist watchlists; non searching airline passengers identified by the computer-based CAPPS screening system; and not hardening aircraft cockpit doors or taking other measures to fix for the possibility of suicide hijackings. General FINDINGS Since the plotters were flexible and resourceful, nosotros cannot know whether whatever single step or serial of steps would accept defeated them. What we can say with conviction 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 regime, there were failures of imagination, policy, capabilities, and management. Imagination The most of import failure was 1 of imagination. We do not believe leaders understood the gravity of the threat. The terrorist danger from Bin Ladin and al Qaeda was not a major topic for policy debate among the public, the media, or in the Congress. Indeed, information technology barely came up during the 2000 presidential campaign. Al Qaeda'south new brand of terrorism presented challenges to U.South. governmental institutions that they were non well-designed to run into. Though acme officials all told us that they understood the danger, we believe in that location was doubt among them as to whether this was just a new and especially 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 beyond any withal experienced. As tardily as September 4, 2001, Richard Clarke, the White House staffer long responsible for counterterrorism policy coordination, asserted that the government had non notwithstanding made up its mind how to answer the question: "Is al Qida a big deal?" A week subsequently came the answer. Policy Terrorism was non the overriding national security concern for the U.S. authorities under either the Clinton or the pre-nine/eleven Bush administration. The policy challenges were linked to this failure of imagination. Officials in both the Clinton and Bush administrations regarded a full U.S. invasion of Afghanistan as practically inconceivable earlier ix/11. Capabilities Before 9/11, the United States tried to solve the al Qaeda problem with the capabilities it had used in the concluding stages of the Cold War and its immediate aftermath. These capabilities were insufficient. Piddling was done to expand or reform them. The CIA had minimal capacity to conduct paramilitary operations with its ain personnel, and it did not seek a big-scale expansion of these capabilities before nine/eleven. The CIA as well needed to better its adequacy to collect intelligence from homo agents. At no point before 9/11 was the Department of Defense fully engaged in the mission of countering al Qaeda, fifty-fifty though this was perhaps the almost dangerous strange enemy threatening the United states of america. America's homeland defenders faced outward. NORAD itself was barely able to retain any alert bases at all. Its planning scenarios occasionally considered the danger of hijacked aircraft beingness guided to American targets, but simply aircraft that were coming from overseas. The about serious weaknesses in agency capabilities were in the domestic arena. 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 test 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 system, 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. Yet the FAA did not adjust either its own grooming or training with NORAD to take account of threats other than those experienced in the past. Direction The missed opportunities to thwart the ix/11 plot were likewise symptoms of a broader inability to adapt the way government manages problems to the new challenges of the twenty-first century. Action officers should accept been able to describe on all bachelor noesis most al Qaeda in the government. Management should have ensured that information was shared and duties were clearly assigned across agencies, and across the foreign-domestic carve up. At that place were also broader direction problems with respect to how superlative leaders set priorities and allocated resources. For instance, on Dec iv, 1998, DCI Tenet issued a directive to several CIA officials and the DDCI for Community Direction, stating: "We are at war. I desire no resource or people spared in this endeavor, either inside 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's authority over the direction of the intelligence community, including agencies within the Department of Defense. The U.S. government did not detect a way of pooling intelligence and using information technology to guide the planning and assignment of responsibilities for joint operations involving entities as disparate as the CIA, the FBI, the Land Section, the military, and the agencies involved in homeland security. SPECIFIC FINDINGS Unsuccessful Affairs Beginning in February 1997, and through September 11, 2001, the U.Due south. regime tried to use diplomatic pressure to persuade the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan to end existence a sanctuary for al Qaeda, and to miscarry Bin Ladin to a country where he could confront justice. These efforts included warnings and sanctions, merely they all failed. The U.S. authorities also pressed two successive Pakistani governments to demand 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 9/11, the United States could non find a mix of incentives and pressure that would persuade Islamic republic of pakistan to reconsider its cardinal human relationship with the Taliban. From 1999 through early on 2001, the U.s. pressed the United Arab Emirates, 1 of the Taliban's only travel and fiscal outlets to the outside world, to break off ties and enforce sanctions, especially those related to air travel to Transitional islamic state of afghanistan. These efforts accomplished little earlier 9/11. Kingdom of saudi arabia has been a problematic ally in combating Islamic extremism. Before 9/11, the Saudi and U.Southward. governments did non fully share intelligence information or develop an adequate joint endeavor to rails and disrupt the finances of the al Qaeda system. On the other mitt, regime 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 Armed forces Options In response to the request of policymakers, the armed services prepared an array of limited strike options for attacking Bin Ladin and his system from May 1998 onward. When they briefed policymakers, the military presented both the pros and cons of those strike options and the associated risks. Policymakers expressed frustration with the range of options presented. Following the August twenty, 1998, missile strikes on al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan and Sudan, both senior military officials and policymakers placed great emphasis on actionable intelligence every bit the primal factor in recommending or deciding to launch war machine action confronting Bin Ladin and his organization. They did non want to take chances significant collateral damage, and they did not want to miss Bin Ladin and thus make the Us look weak while making Bin Ladin look strong. On three specific occasions in 1998-1999, intelligence was accounted credible enough to warrant planning for possible strikes to kill Bin Ladin. Just in each case the strikes did not go frontwards, considering senior policymakers did not regard the intelligence as sufficiently actionable to get-go their assessment of the risks. The Managing director of Central Intelligence, policymakers, and military officials expressed frustration with the lack of actionable intelligence. Some officials inside the Pentagon, including those in the special forces and the counterterrorism policy part, also expressed frustration with the lack of military action. The Bush administration began to develop new policies toward al Qaeda in 2001, but military plans did not alter until after 9/11. Problems inside the Intelligence Community The intelligence customs struggled throughout the 1990s and upwards to nine/11 to collect intelligence on and analyze the phenomenon of transnational terrorism. The combination of an overwhelming number of priorities, apartment budgets, an outmoded construction, and bureaucratic rivalries resulted in an bereft response to this new challenge. Many dedicated officers worked day and nighttime for years to piece together the growing body of prove on al Qaeda and to sympathize the threats. Yet, while there were many reports on Bin Laden and his growing al Qaeda system, there was no comprehensive review of what the intelligence customs knew and what it did not know, and what that meant. At that place was no National Intelligence Guess on terrorism between 1995 and ix/11. Before 9/xi, no agency did more to assail al Qaeda than the CIA. But there were limits to what the CIA was able to reach by disrupting terrorist activities abroad and by using proxies to try to capture Bin Ladin and his lieutenants in Afghanistan. CIA officers were aware of those limitations. To put it simply, covert action was not a silver bullet. It was important to engage proxies in Afghanistan and to build various capabilities so that if an opportunity presented itself, the CIA could human action on it. But for more than than 3 years, through both the late Clinton and early Bush administrations, the CIA relied on proxy forces, and at that place was growing frustration within the CIA's Counterterrorist Heart and in the National Security Council staff with the lack of results. The development of the Predator and the push to aid the Northern Alliance were products of this frustration. Bug in the FBI From the time of the first World Merchandise Center attack 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.S. interests, both at home and away. Throughout the 1990s, the FBI'south counterterrorism efforts against international terrorist organizations included both intelligence and criminal investigations. The FBI's approach to investigations was example-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 disquisitional to an effective preventive counterterrorism strategy. Those working counterterrorism matters did so despite limited intelligence collection and strategic assay capabilities, a limited capacity to share information both internally and externally, insufficient training, perceived legal barriers to sharing information, and inadequate resources. Permeable Borders and Immigration Controls There were opportunities for intelligence and law enforcement to exploit al Qaeda's travel vulnerabilities. Considered collectively, the 9/11 hijackers included known al Qaeda operatives who could take been watchlisted; presented passports manipulated in a fraudulent mode; presented passports with suspicious indicators of extremism; made detectable faux statements on visa applications; made false statements to border officials to gain entry into the United states of america; and violated immigration laws while in the United states. Neither the State Department's consular officers nor the Immigration and Naturalization Service's inspectors and agents were ever considered full partners in a national counterterrorism endeavor. Protecting borders was not a national security consequence before 9/11. 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 likely permissible. Though two of the hijackers were on the U.Southward.TIPOFF terrorist watchlist, the FAA did non apply TIPOFF data. The hijackers had to trounce simply one layer of security-the security checkpoint procedure. Even though several hijackers were selected for extra screening past the CAPPS organization, this led but 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 event of a hijacking. Financing The 9/11 attacks toll somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 to execute. The operatives spent more than $270,000 in the U.s.. 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 made extensive employ 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 amidst the billions of dollars flowing effectually the world every day. To date, we have non been able to determine the origin of the coin used for the 9/eleven attacks. Al Qaeda had many sources of funding and a pre-9/eleven annual budget estimated at $30 one thousand thousand. If a detail source of funds had dried up, al Qaeda could easily have constitute enough money elsewhere to fund the attack. An Improvised Homeland Defence The civilian and armed forces 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 practise not reflect ignominy on operational personnel. NORAD'due south Northeast Air Defence Sector personnel reached out for data and made the best judgments they could based on the information they received. Individual FAA controllers, facility managers, and control eye managers were artistic and agile in recommending a nationwide alarm, ground-stopping local traffic, ordering all aircraft nationwide to land, and executing that unprecedented order flawlessly. At more senior levels, communication was poor. Senior military and FAA leaders had no effective advice with each other. The concatenation of command did non function well. The President could non reach some senior officials. The Secretary of Defense did non enter the concatenation of control until the morning time'southward key events were over. Air National Guard units with different rules of engagement were scrambled without the knowledge of the President, NORAD, or the National Military Command Center. Emergency Response The civilians, firefighters, police officers, emergency medical technicians, and emergency management professionals exhibited steady determination and resolve under horrifying, overwhelming weather on ix/11.Their actions saved lives and inspired a nation. Effective decisionmaking in New York was hampered past bug in control and control and in internal communications. Within the Burn 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 really dispatched than were ordered by the chiefs; some units self-dispatched; and in one case units arrived at the Earth Trade Middle, they were neither comprehensively accounted for nor coordinated. The Port Authorization'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 fashion. The New York Police Section, considering of its history of mobilizing thousands of officers for major events requiring crowd control, had a technical radio capability and protocols more easily adapted to an incident of the magnitude of 9/11. Congress The Congress, like the executive co-operative, responded slowly to the rise of transnational terrorism every bit a threat to national security. The legislative branch 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 trivial guidance to executive branch agencies on terrorism, did not reform them in whatsoever meaning manner to meet the threat, and did not systematically perform robust oversight to identify, accost, and effort to resolve the many problems in national security and domestic agencies that became apparent in the aftermath of 9/11. Then long as oversight is undermined by current congressional rules and resolutions, nosotros believe the American people will not get the security they want and need. The United States needs a strong, stable, and capable congressional committee structure to give America's national intelligence agencies oversight, support, and leadership. Are Nosotros Safer? Since nine/11, the U.s. and its allies take killed or captured a majority of al Qaeda's leadership; toppled the Taliban, which gave al Qaeda sanctuary in Afghanistan; and severely damaged the system. Yet terrorist attacks continue. Fifty-fifty equally we have thwarted attacks, most anybody expects they will come. How tin can this be? The problem is that al Qaeda represents an ideological movement, non a finite group of people. It initiates and inspires, even if it no longer directs. In this way information technology has transformed itself into a decentralized force. Bin Ladin may be express in his ability to organize major attacks from his hideouts. Yet killing or capturing him, while extremely of import, would not stop terror. His message of inspiration to a new generation of terrorists would continue. Because of offensive actions against al Qaeda since nine/11, and defensive actions to improve homeland security, we believe nosotros are safer today. Simply nosotros are not rubber. Nosotros therefore brand the following recommendations that we believe tin make America safer and more secure. RECOMMENDATIONS Three years after 9/eleven, the national contend continues about how to protect our nation in this new era. Nosotros divide our recommendations into two basic parts: What to do, and how to do it. WHAT TO Do? A GLOBAL STRATEGY The enemy is not just "terrorism." It is the threat posed specifically past Islamist terrorism, past Bin Ladin and others who draw on a long tradition of extreme intolerance inside a minority strain of Islam that does non distinguish politics from organized religion, and distorts both. The enemy is not Islam, the great world organized religion, simply a perversion of Islam. The enemy goes across al Qaeda to include the radical ideological movement, inspired in role 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 starting time phase of our post-9/11 efforts rightly included military machine action to topple the Taliban and pursue al Qaeda. This work continues. But long-term success demands the use of all elements of national power: affairs, intelligence, covert action, constabulary enforcement, economic policy, foreign aid, public diplomacy, and homeland defense. If nosotros favor one tool while neglecting others, we leave ourselves vulnerable and weaken our national effort. What should Americans expect from their government? The goal seems unlimited: Defeat terrorism anywhere in the world. Simply Americans have too been told to expect the worst: An attack is probably coming; it may be more devastating still. Vague goals match an amorphous picture of the enemy. Al Qaeda and other groups are popularly described as being all over the world, adaptable, resilient, needing little higher-level organization, and capable of anything. It is an image of an omnipotent hydra of destruction. That image lowers expectations of regime effectiveness. It lowers them too far. Our written report shows a determined and capable group of plotters. Nonetheless the grouping was fragile and occasionally left vulnerable by the marginal, unstable people oftentimes attracted to such causes. The enemy fabricated mistakes. The U.S. government was not able to capitalize on them. No president tin promise that a catastrophic attack like that of 9/11 will not happen again. But the American people are entitled to expect that officials will have realistic objectives, clear guidance, and effective organization. They are entitled to see standards for performance so they tin judge, with the help of their elected representatives, whether the objectives are being met. We propose a strategy with three dimensions: (1) set on terrorists and their organizations, (2) prevent the connected growth of Islamist terrorism, and (3) protect against and prepare for terrorist attacks. Attack Terrorists and Their Organizations Root out sanctuaries.The U.S. authorities should identify and prioritize actual or potential terrorist sanctuaries and accept realistic country or regional strategies for each, utilizing every chemical element of national power and reaching out to countries that tin can help united states. Strengthen long-term U.South. and international commitments to the futurity of Islamic republic of pakistan and Transitional islamic state of afghanistan. Face up problems with Saudi Arabia in the open up and build a human relationship beyond oil, a human relationship that both sides tin can defend to their citizens and includes a shared commitment to reform. Prevent the Continued Growth of Islamist Terrorism In October 2003, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld asked if enough was existence done "to fashion a wide integrated plan to stop the next generation of terrorists." Equally part of such a plan, the U.Due south. authorities should Ascertain 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 have the advantage-our vision tin can offer a better hereafter. Where Muslim governments, even those who are friends, do not offer opportunity, respect the dominion of law, or tolerate differences, then the Usa needs to stand for a amend future. Communicate and defend American ethics in the Islamic world, through much stronger public diplomacy to accomplish more people, including students and leaders outside of regime. Our efforts here should be as strong as they were in combating closed societies during the Common cold War. Offer an agenda of opportunity that includes support for public instruction and economic openness. Develop a comprehensive coalition strategy against Islamist terrorism, using a flexible contact group of leading coalition governments and fashioning a common coalition approach on problems like the handling of captured terrorists. Devote a maximum attempt to the parallel chore of countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Expect less from trying to dry upwards terrorist coin and more than from following the money for intelligence, every bit a tool to hunt terrorists, empathize their networks, and disrupt their operations. Protect against and Prepare for Terrorist Attacks Target terrorist travel, an intelligence and security strategy that the 9/11 story showed could be at to the lowest degree as powerful as the effort devoted to terrorist finance. Address 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 mutual problems and sets mutual standards. Equally standards spread, this necessary and ambitious endeavor could dramatically strengthen the world's ability to intercept individuals who could pose catastrophic threats. Apace complete a biometric entry-exit screening system, i that also speeds qualified travelers. Set standards for the issuance of birth certificates and sources of identification, such every bit driver'southward licenses. Develop strategies for neglected parts of our transportation security system. Since 9/11, about 90 percent of the nation's $v billion almanac investment in transportation security has gone to aviation, to fight the last war. In aviation, prevent arguments about a new computerized profiling system from delaying vital improvements in the "no-fly" and "automated selectee" lists. Also, give priority to the improvement of checkpoint screening. Decide, 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 every bit regime power necessarily expands in sure means, the burden of retaining such powers remains on the executive to demonstrate the value of such powers and ensure acceptable supervision of how they are used, including a new lath 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 City and Washington, D.C., at the top of the electric current list. Such assistance should not remain a program for general acquirement sharing or pork-barrel spending. Brand homeland security funding contingent on the adoption of an incident control system to strengthen teamwork in a crisis, including a regional approach. Allocate more radio spectrum and improve connectivity for public safety communications, and encourage widespread adoption of newly adult standards for private-sector emergency preparedness-since the private sector controls 85 per centum of the nation's critical infrastructure. HOW TO Practise Information technology? A DIFFERENT WAY OF ORGANIZING Government The strategy we have recommended is elaborate, even as presented here very briefly. To implement information technology will require a government better organized than the one that exists today, with its national security institutions designed half a century ago to win the Cold State of war. Americans should not settle for incremental, ad hoc adjustments to a organization created a generation ago for a globe that no longer exists. Our detailed recommendations are designed to fit together. Their purpose is clear: to build unity of effort across the U.Southward. authorities. As ane official now serving on the forepart lines overseas put it to us: "1 fight, one team." We call for unity of effort in 5 areas, beginning with unity of effort on the challenge of counterterrorism itself: unifying strategic intelligence and operational planning against Islamist terrorists across the strange-domestic separate with a National Counterterrorism Center; unifying the intelligence community with a new National Intelligence Managing director; unifying the many participants in the counterterrorism endeavour and their knowledge in a network-based data sharing organisation that transcends traditional governmental boundaries; unifying and strengthening congressional oversight to ameliorate quality and accountability; and strengthening the FBI and homeland defenders. Unity of Effort: A National Counterterrorism Center The 9/11 story teaches the value of integrating strategic intelligence from all sources into joint operational planning-with both dimensions spanning the foreign-domestic divide. In some ways, since 9/11, joint work has gotten amend. The effort of fighting terrorism has flooded over many of the usual agency boundaries because of its sheer quantity and energy. Attitudes accept changed. But the problems of coordination take multiplied. The Defense Department lonely has iii unified commands (SOCOM, CENTCOM, and NORTHCOM) that bargain with terrorism equally one of their main concerns. Much of the public commentary virtually the 9/eleven attacks has focused on "lost opportunities." Though characterized as problems of "watchlisting," "data sharing," or "connecting the dots," each of these labels is too narrow. They describe the symptoms, not the affliction. Breaking the older mold of arrangement stovepiped purely in executive agencies, we advise a National Counterterrorism Heart (NCTC) that would borrow the joint, unified control concept adopted in the 1980s by the American armed forces in a civilian agency, combining the joint intelligence function alongside the operations piece of work. The NCTC would build on the existing Terrorist Threat Integration Center and would supervene upon it and other terrorism "fusion centers" within the government. The NCTC would become the authoritative knowledge banking company, bringing information to bear on common plans. It should task collection requirements both inside 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 Function 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 Managing director, the NCTC would track 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 Defense and Homeland Security. The NCTC should not be a policymaking body. Its operations and planning should follow the policy direction of the president and the National Security Council. Unity of Endeavor: A National Intelligence Director Since long earlier nine/eleven-and continuing to this day-the intelligence community is non organized well for joint intelligence work. It does not utilise mutual standards and practices in reporting intelligence or in grooming experts overseas and at domicile. The expensive national capabilities for collecting intelligence have divided direction. The structures are also complex and too surreptitious. The community's head-the Director of Central Intelligence-has at least three jobs: running the CIA, coordinating a 15-agency confederation, and being the intelligence annotator-in-main to the president. No one person tin practice all these things. A new National Intelligence Director should be established with two primary jobs: (i) to oversee national intelligence centers that combine experts from all the drove disciplines against mutual targets- similar counterterrorism or nuclear proliferation; and (2) to oversee the agencies that contribute to the national intelligence program, a chore that includes setting mutual standards for personnel and it. The national intelligence centers would be the unified commands of the intelligence world-a long-overdue reform for intelligence comparable to the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols law that reformed the organization of national defence. The domicile services-such as the CIA, DIA, NSA, and FBI-would organize, train, and equip the best intelligence professionals in the globe, and would handle the execution of intelligence operations in the field. This National Intelligence Director (NID) should be located in the Executive Office of the President and study directly to the president, yet be confirmed by the Senate. In addition to overseeing the National Counterterrorism Center described higher up (which will include both the national intelligence center for terrorism and the joint operations planning endeavour), the NID should have three deputies: For foreign intelligence (a deputy who also would exist the head of the CIA) For defense intelligence (likewise the under secretarial assistant of defence for intelligence) For homeland intelligence (also the executive assistant manager for intelligence at the FBI or the nether secretary of homeland security for information analysis and infrastructure protection) The NID should receive a public appropriation for national intelligence, should have authorization to hire and fire his or her intelligence deputies, and should be able to set common personnel and it policies across the intelligence customs. The CIA should concentrate on strengthening the drove capabilities of its undercover service and the talents of its analysts, building pride in its cadre expertise. Secrecy stifles oversight, accountability, and information sharing. Unfortunately, all the current organizational incentives encourage overclassification. This residuum should change; and as a start, open information should be provided about the overall size of agency intelligence budgets. Unity of Effort: Sharing Information The U.S. regime has access to a vast corporeality of information. But it has a weak system for processing and using what it has. The system of "need to know" should be replaced by a system of "need to share." The President should pb a government-broad effort 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 afterwards official has urged us to telephone 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 sometime divides, solving common legal and policy issues in ways that tin can assistance officials know what they can and cannot practice. Again, in tackling data issues, America needs unity of endeavor. Unity of Endeavor: Congress Congress took besides petty activeness to adjust 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 than to minimize national security risks during transitions between administrations. For intelligence oversight, nosotros propose two options: either a joint committee on the old model of the Articulation Committee on Atomic Energy or a single committee in each firm combining authorizing and appropriating committees. Our central bulletin is the same: the intelligence committees cannot conduct out their oversight role unless they are fabricated stronger, and thereby take both clear responsibleness and accountability for that oversight. Congress should create a unmarried, principal bespeak of oversight and review for homeland security. In that location should be i permanent continuing committee for homeland security in each bedchamber. Nosotros propose reforms to speed upwardly the nomination, fiscal reporting, security clearance, and confirmation process for national security officials at the beginning of an administration, and propose steps to make sure that incoming administrations have the information they need. Unity of Attempt: Organizing America's Defenses in the United states of america We have considered several proposals relating to the future of the domestic intelligence and counterterrorism mission. Adding a new domestic intelligence bureau will not solve America's problems in collecting and analyzing intelligence within the United States. We do not recommend creating one. We propose the institution 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 responsibleness for defending us at home? Responsibility for America'south national defense is shared past the Department of Defense, with its new Northern Command, and past the Department of Homeland Security.They must have a clear delineation of roles, missions, and authority. The Department of Defense and its oversight committees should regularly assess the adequacy of Northern Command's strategies and planning to defend against military machine threats to the homeland. The Department of Homeland Security and its oversight committees should regularly assess the types of threats the country faces, in order to determine the adequacy of the government's plans and the readiness of the regime to respond to those threats. * * * We call on the American people to recollect how we all felt on ix/11, to remember not only the unspeakable horror but how we came together as a nation-1 nation. Unity of purpose and unity of effort are the way we volition defeat this enemy and make America safer for our children and grandchildren. We look forrad to a national debate on the merits of what nosotros accept recommended, and we will participate vigorously in that debate.

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