Gyroscope

A newsletter for those unmoved by spin.
No. 3, Aug 4, 2003

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Could the September 11th attacks been thwarted by U.S. counterintelligence agencies? The Congressional report is correct, I think, to say that there is no "smoking gun," no obvious evidence lying around that said "these guys will hijack airplanes during this time."

However, there are a lot of things one step removed from a smoking gun. Most of these items are failures to connect the dots. Time and again one agency (or one part of an agency) knew one bit of information and another knew another bit of information that, if brought together, would have likely stimulated the agencies to act. One agency knew about general terrorist risks, another had the names of specific men who later would be hijackers. One knew that these men were studying to be pilots another was suspicious about one of them for other reasons.

I think that had this information been put together there is a reasonable probability that one agency would have been moved to conduct further investigation focusing on one or more of the men who became the September 11th hijackers. And I further think that with attention focused on one of these future hijackers the plot would have started to unravel.

That's not an ironclad prediction, it relies on too many imponderables. But I think it is very significant that so much information was available that pointed specifically to the people would hijack those airplanes.

The reason this matters is that in the wake of September 11th a myth has been created that we were totally vulnerable to terrorism and that the only way to protect ourselves is to consent to a significant invasion of our liberties and to greatly increased surveillance and scrutiny. Laws have been passed giving law enforcement wider powers against people who are not identified as doing anything suspicious.

All this doubtless is generating a lot more information into the systems of all intelligence agencies. And what is being done with that information? I have not read of agencies working to break down communications barriers or to share data about specific people who have come to their attention. I haven't read much about agencies reviewing how they distinguish significant information from random dross.

So when the next plot comes along, will our agencies be any more ready to respond, any better at connecting the dots? It doesn't look like it, instead, the real information about particular threats will be buried under an even larger mass of randomly collected information about people who are not threats.

Remember, the names of several of the hijackers were specifically known to the CIA and the FBI as potential threats prior to 9/11. The problem wasn't our democratic society that allowed these terrorists to operate openly. The problem wasn't a lack of power to collect information. The problem was our agencies were concerned about turf and couldn't put together the information they already had.

"The purpose of this communication is to advise the Bureau and New York of the possibility of a coordinated effort by Usama bin Laden to send students to the United States to attend civil aviation universities and colleges. ... gives reason to believe that a coordinated effort is underway to establish a cadre of individuals who will one day be working in the civil aviation community... These individuals will be in a position in the future to conduct terror activity against civil aviation targets." Memo by FBI agent, July 2001.

This information did not stimulate any specific Intelligence Community assessment of, or collective U.S. Government reaction to, this form of threat. Excerpt of Finding 4, from Report of the Joint Inquiry into the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Dec. 2002, released June 2003 (except for 28 pages). (Hereafter referred to as "Report")

"In August 2001, the FBI's Minneapolis field office ... detained Zacarias Moussaoui.... FBI agents there also suspected that Moussaoui was involved in a hijacking plot. FBI Headquarters attorneys determined that there was not probable cause to obtain a court order to search Moussaoui's belongings." Report, p. xiii.

"In the period from September 8 to September 10, 2001 NSA intercepted, but did not translate or disseminate until after September 11, some communications that indicated possible impending terrorist activity." Report, p. xv

"On August 21, 2001 ... the FAA had issued a Security Directive, entitled 'Threat to U.S. Aircraft Operators.' That Directive alerted commercial airliners that nine named terrorism-associated individuals - none of whom were connected to the 19 hijackers - were planning commercial air travel and should receive additional security scrutiny if they attempted to board an aircraft. ... Had the FAA been advised of the presence of [9/11 hijackers] al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar in the United States, a similar directive could have been issued [for them]." Report, p. 15

"The important point is that the Intelligence Community, for a variety of reasons, did not bring together and fully appreciate a range of information that could have greatly enhanced its chances of uncovering and preventing Usama Bin Ladin's plan to attack the United States on September 11, 2001" Report, p. 33

"... agency personnel stated that, while individual relationships and cooperation between CIA and NSA at the working level had often been very good, relationships at the mid- and upper-management levels ... were often strained." Report, p. 54

A real victory in the war on terror has been won by the government of Greece. The November 17th terrorist group has for decades been operating with total impunity. More than 20 officials and business leaders have been assassinated over 27 years without a single conviction or even an arrest. The group, for a time, enjoyed some perverse sympathy from some Greeks as the group only targeted foreigners or the very wealthy or agencies seen by some as agents of imperialist oppression of Greece. Foreign governments, especially the US, had roundly criticized what they saw as a rather halfhearted attempt by Greek law enforcement to stop the group.

Over time sympathy faded for the group and with the Olympic games headed back to Greece in 2004, pressure mounted for a more effective response. The Greek administration of Costis Simitis responded with a renewed focus, acceptance of better training from US and UK agencies and appointment of a more serious leader of counter-terrorism efforts.

Last year a break came: one of the members of the organization wounded himself when a bomb he was carrying blew up prematurely. The Greek government was ready and pounced and soon the organization began to unravel. Some 20 terrorists are now on trial in Athens (a public trial with lawyers and due process and a civilian judge) and the organization has been revealed to be a shabby collection of nonentities. It is broken and at an end.