Everything You Wanted to Know About September 11

THE 9/11 COMMISSION Written report Final Written report of the National Committee on Terrorist Attacks Upon the Usa EXECUTIVE SUMMARY We nowadays the narrative of this written report and the recommendations that flow from information technology to the President of the United States, the United States Congress, and the American people for their consideration. Ten Commissioners-five Republicans and five Democrats chosen past elected leaders from our nation'south capital letter at a time of bang-up partisan division-accept come together to present this study without dissent. We take come together with a unity of purpose because our nation demands it. September eleven, 2001, was a 24-hour interval of unprecedented shock and suffering in the history of the United states of america. The nation was unprepared. A NATION TRANSFORMED At viii:46 on the morn of September 11, 2001, the United States became a nation transformed. An airliner traveling at hundreds of miles per hr and carrying some 10,000 gallons of jet fuel plowed into the North Tower of the World Trade Eye in Lower Manhattan. At 9:03, a second airliner hit the South Tower. Fire and smoke billowed upward. Steel, drinking glass, ash, and bodies roughshod below. The Twin Towers, where up to fifty,000 people worked each twenty-four hours, both collapsed less than 90 minutes later. At 9:37 that same morning, a third airliner slammed into the western face of the Pentagon. At 10:03, a fourth airliner crashed in a field in southern Pennsylvania. It had been aimed at the United states Capitol or the White Business firm, and was forced downwardly by heroic passengers armed with the knowledge that America was under attack. More than 2,600 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 December 1941. This immeasurable pain was inflicted past 19 young Arabs interim at the behest of Islamist extremists headquartered in afar Afghanistan. Some had been in the Us for more than a year, mixing with the rest of the population. Though four had training as pilots, most were not well-educated. Most spoke English language poorly, some hardly at all. In groups of four or five, carrying with them only pocket-sized knives, box cutters, and cans of Mace or pepper spray, they had hijacked the four planes and turned them into deadly guided missiles. Why did they do this? How was the attack planned and conceived? How did the U.S. regime neglect to anticipate and foreclose it? What can we do in the future to foreclose similar acts of terrorism? A Shock, Non a Surprise The 9/eleven attacks were a shock, but they should not have 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 belatedly 1990s, the threat of Islamist terrorism grew over the decade. In Feb 1993, a group led by Ramzi Yousef tried to bring downwards the World Merchandise Heart with a truck flop. They killed six and wounded a thousand. Plans by Omar Abdel Rahman and others to accident upward the The netherlands and Lincoln tunnels and other New York City landmarks were frustrated when the plotters were arrested. In October 1993, Somali tribesmen shot downwards U.S. helicopters, killing xviii and wounding 73 in an incident that came to be known every bit "Black Hawk downwardly." Years later it would exist 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 upwards a dozen U.Due south. airliners while they were flying over the Pacific. In November 1995, a car bomb exploded exterior the function of the U.S. program manager for the Saudi National Guard in Riyadh, killing v Americans and ii others. In June 1996, a truck bomb demolished the Khobar Towers apartment complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 U.S. servicemen and wounding hundreds. The attack was carried out primarily by Saudi Hezbollah, an organisation that had received aid from the government of Islamic republic of iran. Until 1997, the U.S. intelligence community viewed Bin Ladin every bit a financier of terrorism, not as a terrorist leader. In February 1998, Usama Bin Ladin and iv others issued a self-styled fatwa, publicly declaring that it was God's decree that every Muslim should try his utmost to kill whatsoever American, armed services or civilian, anywhere in the earth, because of American "occupation" of Islam's holy places and aggression against Muslims. In August 1998, Bin Ladin'south group, al Qaeda, carried out near-simultaneous truck bomb attacks on the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The attacks killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, and wounded thousands more. In December 1999, Jordanian police foiled a plot to bomb hotels and other sites frequented by American tourists, and a U.S. Community agent arrested Ahmed Ressam at the U.S. Canadian border as he was smuggling in explosives intended for an attack on Los Angeles International Airdrome. In October 2000, an al Qaeda squad in Aden, Yemen, used a motorboat filled with explosives to blow a hole in the side of a destroyer, the USS Cole, nearly sinking the vessel and killing 17 American sailors. The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Middle and the Pentagon were far more elaborate, precise, and destructive than whatever of these before assaults. Only past September 2001, the executive branch of the U.S. authorities, the Congress, the news media, and the American public had received clear warning that Islamist terrorists meant to impale Americans in high numbers. Who Is the Enemy? Who is this enemy that created an organization capable of inflicting such horrific harm on the U.s.a.? We now know that these attacks were carried out past various groups of Islamist extremists. The 9/11 assail was driven by Usama Bin Ladin. In the 1980s, immature Muslims from around the world went to Transitional islamic state of afghanistan to join every bit volunteers in a jihad (or holy struggle) confronting the Soviet Union. A wealthy Saudi, Usama Bin Ladin, was i of them. Following the defeat of the Soviets in the belatedly 1980s, Bin Ladin and others formed al Qaeda to mobilize jihads elsewhere. The history, civilisation, and body of beliefs from which Bin Ladin shapes and spreads his bulletin are largely unknown to many Americans. Seizing on symbols of Islam'southward 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 by cyclonic change every bit they confront 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 United States widely shared in the Muslim globe. He inveighed against the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi arabia, which is the dwelling house of Islam's holiest sites, and against other U.S. policies in the Heart East. Upon this political and ideological foundation, Bin Ladin built over the class of a decade a dynamic and lethal organization. He congenital an infrastructure and organization in Afghanistan that could attract, train, and use recruits confronting e'er more ambitious targets. He rallied new zealots and new money with each demonstration of al Qaeda'south capability. He had forged a shut alliance with the Taliban, a regime providing sanctuary for al Qaeda. By September 11, 2001, al Qaeda possessed leaders able to evaluate, approve, and supervise the planning and management of a major operation; a personnel system that could recruit candidates, indoctrinate them, vet them, and requite 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 data and form assessments of enemy strengths and weaknesses; the ability to move people great distances; and the ability to raise and move the coin necessary to finance an attack. 1998 to September 11, 2001 The Baronial 1998 bombings of U.South. embassies in Republic of kenya and Tanzania established al Qaeda as a stiff adversary of the United States. After launching cruise missile strikes confronting al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan and Sudan in retaliation for the embassy bombings, the Clinton administration applied diplomatic pressure level to try to persuade the Taliban regime in Afghanistan to expel Bin Ladin. The assistants also devised covert operations to use CIA-paid strange agents to capture or kill Bin Ladin and his chief lieutenants. These actions did not end Bin Ladin or dislodge al Qaeda from its sanctuary. Past late 1998 or early 1999, Bin Ladin and his directorate had agreed on an thought brought to them by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) called the "planes operation." It would eventually 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 stiff-willed field commanders, such as KSM, to carry out worldwide terrorist operations. KSM claims that his original plot was even grander than those carried out on 9/eleven-ten planes would attack targets on both the E and Due west coasts of the United States. This program was modified past Bin Ladin, KSM said, owing to its scale and complexity. Bin Ladin provided KSM with iv initial operatives for suicide plane attacks within the U.s.a., and in the fall of 1999 grooming for the attacks began. New recruits included iv from a cell of expatriate Muslim extremists who had amassed together in Hamburg, Deutschland. One became the tactical commander of the operation in the Usa: Mohamed Atta. U.Due south. intelligence oftentimes picked up reports of attacks planned by al Qaeda. Working with foreign security services, the CIA broke upwardly some al Qaeda cells. The core of Bin Ladin's organization withal remained intact. In Dec 1999, news virtually the arrests of the terrorist cell in Jordan and the arrest of a terrorist at the U.S.-Canadian edge became function of a "millennium alert." The government was galvanized, and the public was on alert for any possible attack. In Jan 2000, the intense intelligence effort glimpsed so lost sight of 2 operatives destined for the "planes operation." Spotted in Kuala Lumpur, the pair were lost passing through Bangkok. On Jan fifteen, 2000, they arrived in Los Angeles. Because these two al Qaeda operatives had spent niggling time in the W and spoke footling, if any, English, information technology is plausible that they or KSM would have tried to identify, in accelerate, a friendly contact in the U.s.a.. We explored suspicions near whether these 2 operatives had a support network of accomplices in the United States. The evidence is thin-only non at that place for some cases, more worrisome in others. We do know that soon after arriving in California, the 2 al Qaeda operatives sought out and establish a group of ideologically like-minded Muslims with roots in Yemen and Kingdom of saudi arabia, individuals mainly associated with a immature Yemeni and others who attended a mosque in San Diego. After a brief stay in Los Angeles almost which we know lilliputian, the al Qaeda operatives lived openly in San Diego under their truthful names. They managed to avoid alluring much attention. By the summer of 2000, 3 of the four Hamburg cell members had arrived on the East Coast of the United States and had begun airplane pilot training. In early 2001, a fourth future hijacker pilot, Hani Hanjour, journeyed to Arizona with another operative, Nawaf al Hazmi, and conducted his refresher airplane pilot grooming there. 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 become Bin Ladin expelled from 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 war machine government 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'south enemies. The CIA also produced a plan to improve intelligence collection on al Qaeda, including the use of a small, unmanned airplane with a video camera, known every bit the Predator. Afterward the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole, evidence accumulated that it had been launched by al Qaeda operatives, but without confirmation that Bin Ladin had given the order. The Taliban had earlier been warned that information technology would be held responsible for another Bin Ladin attack on the Usa. The CIA described its findings every bit a "preliminary judgment"; President Clinton and his chief advisers told u.s.a. they were waiting for a conclusion before deciding whether to accept military action. The military alternatives remained unappealing to them. The transition to the new Bush-league administration in late 2000 and early 2001 took identify with the Cole consequence still pending. President George W. Bush and his master advisers accustomed that al Qaeda was responsible for the attack on the Cole, but did non like the options available for a response. Bin Ladin's inference may well have been that attacks, at least 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 within three to v years. During the spring and summer of 2001, U.Due south. intelligence agencies received a stream of warnings that al Qaeda planned, as one report put it, "something very, very, very big." Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet told us, "The system was blinking scarlet." Although Bin Ladin was adamant to strike in the United States, as President Clinton had been told and President Bush-league was reminded in a Presidential Daily Brief article briefed to him in August 2001, the specific threat data pointed overseas. Numerous precautions were taken overseas. Domestic agencies were not finer mobilized. The threat did not receive national media attending comparable to the millennium warning. While the United States connected disruption efforts around the world, its emerging strategy to eliminate the al Qaeda threat was to include an enlarged covert action programme in Afghanistan, every bit well as diplomatic strategies for Afghanistan and Pakistan. The process culminated during the summer of 2001 in a draft presidential directive and arguments nigh the Predator aircraft, which was before long to be deployed with a missile of its own, and then that information technology might exist used to attempt to impale Bin Ladin or his chief lieutenants. At a September 4 meeting, President Bush-league's 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'southward signature on September 11, 2001. Though the "planes operation" was progressing, the plotters had problems of their own in 2001. Several possible participants dropped out; others could not proceeds entry into the U.s.a. (including one denial at a port of entry and visa denials not related to terrorism). One of the eventual pilots may have considered abandoning the planes operation. Zacarias Moussaoui, who showed up at a flight training schoolhouse in Minnesota, may have been a candidate to replace him. Some of the vulnerabilities of the plotters become clear in hindsight. Moussaoui aroused suspicion for seeking fast-rails training on how to airplane 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 non prompt urgent action. No 1 working on these tardily 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 basis. Equally last preparations were under way during the summer of 2001, dissent emerged amongst al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan over whether to go along. The Taliban'south chief, Mullah Omar, opposed attacking the Usa. Although facing opposition from many of his senior lieutenants, Bin Ladin effectively overruled their objections, and the attacks went forrad. September xi, 2001 The day began with the 19 hijackers getting through a security checkpoint system that they had obviously analyzed and knew how to defeat. Their success rate in penetrating the arrangement was nineteen for 19.They took over the 4 flights, taking advantage of air crews and cockpits that were not prepared for the contingency of a suicide hijacking. On ix/11, the defense of U.S. air space depended on close interaction between 2 federal agencies: the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). Existing protocols on 9/xi were unsuited in every respect for an attack in which hijacked planes were used as weapons. What ensued was a hurried attempt to improvise a defense force by civilians who had never handled a hijacked shipping that attempted to disappear, and by a armed services 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, but ineffectively, as they did not know where to get or what targets they were to intercept. And once the shootdown club was given, it was not communicated to the pilots. In short, while leaders in Washington believed that the fighters circling above them had been instructed to "take out" hostile aircraft, the only orders really conveyed to the pilots were to "ID type and tail." Like the national defence force, the emergency response on 9/11 was necessarily improvised. In New York City, the Burn down Section of New York, the New York Constabulary Department, the Port Potency of New York and New Jersey, the building employees, and the occupants of the buildings did their all-time to cope with the furnishings of almost unimaginable events-unfolding furiously over 102 minutes. Casualties were nearly 100 pct at and above the impact zones and were very loftier among first responders who stayed in danger as they tried to salvage lives. Despite weaknesses in preparations for disaster, failure to attain unified incident command, and inadequate communications among responding agencies, all only approximately ane hundred of the thousands of civilians who worked beneath the impact zone escaped, often with help from the emergency responders. At the Pentagon, while there were besides bug of command and control, the emergency response was more often than not constructive. The Incident Control System, a formalized management structure for emergency response in place in the National Capital letter Region, overcame the inherent complications of a response across 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 conditions of uncertainty and in circumstances over which they ofttimes had picayune control. Nonetheless, there were specific points of vulnerability in the plot and opportunities to disrupt it. 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, not trailing them after they traveled to Bangkok, and non informing the FBI about 1 futurity hijacker's U.S. visa or his companion's travel to the Us; not sharing information linking individuals in the Cole assail to Mihdhar; non taking adequate steps in fourth dimension to detect Mihdhar or Hazmi in the The states; not linking the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui, described as interested in flight grooming for the purpose of using an airplane in a terrorist act, to the heightened indications of attack; not discovering false 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 computer-based CAPPS screening system; and non hardening aircraft cockpit doors or taking other measures to prepare for the possibility of suicide hijackings. General FINDINGS Since the plotters were flexible and resourceful, nosotros cannot know whether whatsoever unmarried step or series of steps would have defeated them. What nosotros can say with conviction is that none of the measures adopted by the U.South. government from 1998 to 2001 disturbed or even delayed the progress of the al Qaeda plot. Beyond the government, there were failures of imagination, policy, capabilities, and management. Imagination The well-nigh of import failure was one 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's new brand of terrorism presented challenges to U.S. governmental institutions that they were not well-designed to meet. Though top officials all told us that they understood the danger, we believe in that location was uncertainty among them as to whether this was just a new and specially venomous version of the ordinary terrorist threat the Usa had lived with for decades, or it was indeed radically new, posing a threat beyond any yet experienced. As late as September 4, 2001, Richard Clarke, the White House staffer long responsible for counterterrorism policy coordination, asserted that the authorities had not however made up its listen how to respond the question: "Is al Qida a large bargain?" A calendar week later on came the answer. Policy Terrorism was not the overriding national security business for the U.South. authorities under either the Clinton or the pre-9/eleven Bush assistants. 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 Transitional islamic state of afghanistan as practically inconceivable earlier 9/11. Capabilities Before 9/xi, 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. Petty was washed to expand or reform them. The CIA had minimal capacity to deport paramilitary operations with its own personnel, and it did not seek a large-scale expansion of these capabilities earlier 9/xi. The CIA as well needed to better its capability to collect intelligence from human agents. At no point before ix/11 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 alert bases at all. Its planning scenarios occasionally considered the danger of hijacked shipping being guided to American targets, but only aircraft that were coming from overseas. The about serious weaknesses in agency capabilities were in the domestic arena. The FBI did not accept the adequacy to link the collective noesis 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 gear up 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 unlike kind of hijacking possibility than they had been trained to expect. Yet the FAA did non adapt either its own training or grooming with NORAD to accept business relationship of threats other than those experienced in the by. Direction The missed opportunities to thwart the ix/11 plot were likewise symptoms of a broader disability to arrange the way government manages bug to the new challenges of the twenty-outset century. Action officers should have been able to draw on all bachelor noesis near al Qaeda in the authorities. Direction should have ensured that information was shared and duties were clearly assigned beyond agencies, and beyond the foreign-domestic separate. In that location were too broader management issues with respect to how top leaders gear up priorities and allocated resources. For case, 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 resources or people spared in this effort, either within CIA or the Community." The memorandum had little overall event on mobilizing the CIA or the intelligence community. This episode indicates the limitations of the DCI's authorization over the direction of the intelligence community, including agencies within the Department of Defence. The U.S. authorities did not discover a style of pooling intelligence and using it to guide the planning and assignment of responsibilities for articulation operations involving entities as disparate as the CIA, the FBI, the State Department, the armed forces, and the agencies involved in homeland security. SPECIFIC FINDINGS Unsuccessful Diplomacy Offset in Feb 1997, and through September xi, 2001, the U.South. government tried to employ diplomatic force per unit area to persuade the Taliban regime in Afghanistan to finish existence a sanctuary for al Qaeda, and to expel Bin Ladin to a country where he could face justice. These efforts included warnings and sanctions, just they all failed. The U.S. government besides pressed 2 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/xi, the U.s.a. could not find a mix of incentives and pressure level 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's simply travel and financial outlets to the outside globe, to pause off ties and enforce sanctions, especially those related to air travel to Afghanistan. These efforts achieved little before ix/11. Kingdom of saudi arabia has been a problematic ally in combating Islamic extremism. Before 9/11, the Saudi and U.S. governments did non fully share intelligence information or develop an adequate joint try to track and disrupt the finances of the al Qaeda organization. On the other hand, regime officials of Kingdom of saudi arabia at the highest levels worked closely with superlative U.S. officials in major initiatives to solve the Bin Ladin problem with diplomacy. Lack of Military Options In response to the request of policymakers, the military prepared an array of limited strike options for attacking Bin Ladin and his system from May 1998 onward. When they briefed policymakers, the military machine 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 xx, 1998, missile strikes on al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan and Sudan, both senior military officials and policymakers placed great accent on actionable intelligence every bit the key factor in recommending or deciding to launch armed forces action against Bin Ladin and his organisation. They did not desire to take chances meaning collateral damage, and they did not want to miss Bin Ladin and thus make the United States look weak while making Bin Ladin look stiff. On three specific occasions in 1998-1999, intelligence was deemed credible enough to warrant planning for possible strikes to kill Bin Ladin. Simply in each case the strikes did not go forward, because senior policymakers did not regard the intelligence as sufficiently actionable to kickoff their assessment of the risks. The Managing director of Central Intelligence, policymakers, and military machine officials expressed frustration with the lack of actionable intelligence. Some officials within the Pentagon, including those in the special forces and the counterterrorism policy office, also expressed frustration with the lack of military machine action. The Bush administration began to develop new policies toward al Qaeda in 2001, but military plans did non change until later 9/xi. Problems within the Intelligence Community The intelligence community struggled throughout the 1990s and up to 9/eleven to collect intelligence on and analyze 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 night for years to piece together the growing trunk of evidence on al Qaeda and to empathise the threats. Yet, while there 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 information technology did not know, and what that meant. There was no National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism between 1995 and 9/11. Before 9/eleven, no agency did more to attack al Qaeda than the CIA. But there were limits to what the CIA was able to achieve by disrupting terrorist activities abroad and past using proxies to endeavor to capture Bin Ladin and his lieutenants in Afghanistan. CIA officers were aware of those limitations. To put information technology just, covert action was not a silver bullet. It was important to engage proxies in Afghanistan and to build diverse capabilities so that if an opportunity presented itself, the CIA could deed on it. But for more than than three years, through both the tardily Clinton and early on Bush-league administrations, the CIA relied on proxy forces, and at that place was growing frustration within the CIA's Counterterrorist Center and in the National Security Council staff with the lack of results. The evolution of the Predator and the push to assist the Northern Brotherhood were products of this frustration. Problems in the FBI From the fourth dimension of the first World Trade Center assault in 1993, FBI and Section of Justice leadership in Washington and New York became increasingly concerned about the terrorist threat from Islamist extremists to U.South. interests, both at home and abroad. Throughout the 1990s, the FBI's counterterrorism efforts against international terrorist organizations included both intelligence and criminal investigations. The FBI's approach 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 power to prevent such attacks, but these reform efforts failed to implement organization-broad institutional alter. On September eleven, 2001, the FBI was express in several areas critical to an effective preventive counterterrorism strategy. Those working counterterrorism matters did so despite limited intelligence drove and strategic assay capabilities, a limited capacity to share information both internally and externally, insufficient preparation, perceived legal barriers to sharing information, and inadequate resources. Permeable Borders and Clearing Controls There were opportunities for intelligence and law enforcement to exploit al Qaeda'southward travel vulnerabilities. Considered collectively, the 9/11 hijackers included known al Qaeda operatives who could have been watchlisted; presented passports manipulated in a fraudulent style; 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 Usa; and violated immigration laws while in the United States. Neither the State Department'due south consular officers nor the Immigration and Naturalization Service'southward inspectors and agents were ever considered total partners in a national counterterrorism endeavour. Protecting borders was not a national security upshot before ix/11. Permeable Aviation Security Hijackers studied publicly available materials on the aviation security system and used items that had less metal content than a handgun and were most likely permissible. Though two of the hijackers were on the The statesTIPOFF terrorist watchlist, the FAA did not use TIPOFF data. The hijackers had to beat only i layer of security-the security checkpoint process. Even though several hijackers were selected for extra screening by the CAPPS organization, this led but to greater scrutiny of their checked baggage. In one case on board, the hijackers were faced with shipping personnel who were trained to exist nonconfrontational in the event of a hijacking. Financing The 9/eleven attacks cost somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 to execute. The operatives spent more than than $270,000 in the United States. Additional expenses included travel to obtain passports and visas, travel to the U.s.a., expenses incurred by the plot leader and facilitators outside the United States, and expenses incurred past the people selected to be hijackers who ultimately did non participate. The conspiracy made all-encompassing 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 around the globe every day. To date, we have non been able to determine the origin of the money used for the ix/xi attacks. Al Qaeda had many sources of funding and a pre-9/11 almanac budget estimated at $30 meg. If a item source of funds had stale upwards, al Qaeda could hands have found enough coin elsewhere to fund the attack. An Improvised Homeland Defense The civilian and military defenders of the nation'south airspace-FAA and NORAD-were unprepared for the attacks launched against them. Given that lack of preparedness, they attempted and failed to improvise an effective homeland defence force against an unprecedented claiming. The events of that morning practise not reflect ignominy on operational personnel. NORAD'due south Northeast Air Defense Sector personnel reached out for information and made the all-time judgments they could based on the information they received. Private FAA controllers, facility managers, and command center managers were creative and active in recommending a nationwide alert, ground-stopping local traffic, ordering all aircraft nationwide to country, and executing that unprecedented club flawlessly. At more senior levels, communication was poor. Senior military and FAA leaders had no effective advice with each other. The chain of control did not function well. The President could non reach some senior officials. The Secretary of Defense did not enter the chain of command until the forenoon's 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 Eye. Emergency Response The civilians, firefighters, constabulary officers, emergency medical technicians, and emergency management professionals exhibited steady determination and resolve under horrifying, overwhelming conditions on 9/11.Their actions saved lives and inspired a nation. Constructive decisionmaking in New York was hampered by problems in control and control 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 Middle, they were neither comprehensively accounted for nor coordinated. The Port Authorization's response was hampered past the lack both of standard operating procedures and of radios capable of enabling multiple commands to answer to an incident in unified fashion. The New York Police Section, because of its history of mobilizing thousands of officers for major events requiring crowd command, 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 branch, responded slowly to the ascension of transnational terrorism as a threat to national security. The legislative branch adjusted little 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 style to meet the threat, and did not systematically perform robust oversight to place, address, and attempt to resolve the many problems in national security and domestic agencies that became apparent in the aftermath of 9/11. So 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 Usa needs a potent, stable, and capable congressional committee structure to give America's national intelligence agencies oversight, support, and leadership. Are We Safer? Since 9/11, the United States and its allies have killed or captured a bulk of al Qaeda's leadership; toppled the Taliban, which gave al Qaeda sanctuary in Afghanistan; and severely damaged the organization. Still terrorist attacks continue. Even equally nosotros take thwarted attacks, nigh everyone expects they will come up. How can this exist? The problem is that al Qaeda represents an ideological movement, not a finite grouping of people. It initiates and inspires, fifty-fifty if it no longer directs. In this fashion it has transformed itself into a decentralized force. Bin Ladin may exist limited in his ability to organize major attacks from his hideouts. Yet killing or capturing him, while extremely important, would not cease terror. His message of inspiration to a new generation of terrorists would go along. Because of offensive actions against al Qaeda since 9/11, and defensive deportment to better homeland security, we believe nosotros are safer today. But we are not safe. We therefore make the following recommendations that we believe can brand America safer and more secure. RECOMMENDATIONS Iii years after 9/11, the national contend continues almost how to protect our nation in this new era. We divide our recommendations into two bones parts: What to exercise, and how to do information technology. WHAT TO DO? A GLOBAL STRATEGY The enemy is not just "terrorism." It is the threat posed specifically past Islamist terrorism, by Bin Ladin and others who depict on a long tradition of extreme intolerance within a minority strain of Islam that does not distinguish politics from religion, and distorts both. The enemy is non Islam, the great world religion, just a perversion of Islam. The enemy goes beyond al Qaeda to include the radical ideological movement, inspired in office 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 first phase of our post-ix/eleven efforts rightly included military action to topple the Taliban and pursue al Qaeda. This work continues. Only long-term success demands the employ of all elements of national power: diplomacy, intelligence, covert action, law enforcement, economical policy, strange aid, public affairs, and homeland defense force. If we favor one tool while neglecting others, we exit ourselves vulnerable and weaken our national effort. What should Americans wait from their regime? The goal seems unlimited: Defeat terrorism anywhere in the globe. But Americans have also been told to expect the worst: An attack is probably coming; it may be more devastating all the same. Vague goals friction match an amorphous picture of the enemy. Al Qaeda and other groups are popularly described equally existence all over the world, adjustable, resilient, needing niggling college-level organization, and capable of anything. It is an image of an omnipotent hydra of destruction. That image lowers expectations of authorities effectiveness. It lowers them too far. Our report shows a determined and capable grouping of plotters. Nonetheless the group was fragile and occasionally left vulnerable by the marginal, unstable people often attracted to such causes. The enemy made mistakes. The U.Due south. government was not able to capitalize on them. No president tin promise that a catastrophic set on like that of 9/11 will not happen once again. But the American people are entitled to expect that officials will accept realistic objectives, clear guidance, and constructive arrangement. They are entitled to meet standards for operation so they can guess, with the help of their elected representatives, whether the objectives are being met. Nosotros advise a strategy with 3 dimensions: (ane) attack terrorists and their organizations, (2) forbid the continued growth of Islamist terrorism, and (3) protect against and set for terrorist attacks. Attack Terrorists and Their Organizations Root out sanctuaries.The U.S. regime should place and prioritize actual 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 assistance us. Strengthen long-term U.S. and international commitments to the future of Islamic republic of pakistan and Transitional islamic state of afghanistan. Face problems with Saudi arabia in the open and build a human relationship beyond oil, a human relationship that both sides can defend to their citizens and includes a shared commitment to reform. Prevent the Continued Growth of Islamist Terrorism In Oct 2003, Secretarial assistant of Defense force Donald Rumsfeld asked if plenty was being washed "to mode a broad integrated program to stop the next generation of terrorists." Equally part of such a programme, the U.Due south. authorities should Define the message and stand up as an example of moral leadership in the world. To Muslim parents, terrorists like Bin Ladin take nothing to offer their children but visions of violence and death. America and its friends have the advantage-our vision tin can offer a amend future. Where Muslim governments, fifty-fifty those who are friends, practice not offer opportunity, respect the rule of police, or tolerate differences, then the U.s.a. needs to correspond a ameliorate future. Communicate and defend American ethics in the Islamic earth, through much stronger public diplomacy to accomplish more than people, including students and leaders outside of government. Our efforts here should be every bit strong every bit they were in combating closed societies during the Cold War. Offering an agenda of opportunity that includes back up for public didactics and economic openness. Develop a comprehensive coalition strategy confronting Islamist terrorism, using a flexible contact grouping of leading coalition governments and fashioning a common coalition approach on bug like the treatment of captured terrorists. Devote a maximum effort to the parallel task of countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Await less from trying to dry up terrorist money and more than from post-obit the money for intelligence, as a tool to chase terrorists, understand their networks, and disrupt their operations. Protect against and Fix for Terrorist Attacks Target terrorist travel, an intelligence and security strategy that the 9/eleven story showed could exist at least equally powerful as the try devoted to terrorist finance. Address bug 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 problems and sets common standards. Every bit standards spread, this necessary and ambitious endeavour could dramatically strengthen the world'due south ability to intercept individuals who could pose catastrophic threats. Quickly complete a biometric entry-exit screening system, one that also speeds qualified travelers. Set standards for the issuance of nativity certificates and sources of identification, such as driver's licenses. Develop strategies for neglected parts of our transportation security system. Since nine/11, about 90 percent of the nation's $5 billion annual investment in transportation security has gone to aviation, to fight the terminal state of war. In aviation, preclude arguments about a new computerized profiling organisation from delaying vital improvements in the "no-wing" and "automatic selectee" lists. Also, give priority to the improvement of checkpoint screening. Determine, with leadership from the President, guidelines for gathering and sharing data in the new security systems that are needed, guidelines that integrate safeguards for privacy and other essential liberties. Underscore that as regime ability necessarily expands in certain ways, the brunt 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 data in these new security systems. Base of operations federal funding for emergency preparedness solely on risks and vulnerabilities, putting New York City and Washington, D.C., at the top of the current list. Such assistance should non remain a program for general acquirement sharing or pork-barrel spending. Make homeland security funding contingent on the adoption of an incident command 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 developed standards for private-sector emergency preparedness-since the private sector controls 85 percentage of the nation's critical infrastructure. HOW TO DO It? A DIFFERENT WAY OF ORGANIZING GOVERNMENT The strategy we accept recommended is elaborate, fifty-fifty as presented here very briefly. To implement it volition crave a regime improve organized than the one that exists today, with its national security institutions designed half a century ago to win the Common cold State of war. Americans should non settle for incremental, advertisement hoc adjustments to a organisation created a generation ago for a world that no longer exists. Our detailed recommendations are designed to fit together. Their purpose is clear: to build unity of try across the U.S. regime. Every bit one official now serving on the front lines overseas put information technology to us: "I fight, one team." We telephone call for unity of effort in five areas, starting time with unity of try on the challenge of counterterrorism itself: unifying strategic intelligence and operational planning confronting Islamist terrorists across the strange-domestic divide with a National Counterterrorism Center; unifying the intelligence community with a new National Intelligence Director; unifying the many participants in the counterterrorism effort and their noesis 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 Attempt: A National Counterterrorism Center The ix/xi story teaches the value of integrating strategic intelligence from all sources into joint operational planning-with both dimensions spanning the foreign-domestic dissever. In some ways, since 9/11, joint work has gotten ameliorate. The effort of fighting terrorism has flooded over many of the usual agency boundaries because of its sheer quantity and energy. Attitudes have changed. But the problems of coordination have multiplied. The Defense Department alone has iii unified commands (SOCOM, CENTCOM, and NORTHCOM) that deal with terrorism every bit 1 of their master concerns. Much of the public commentary about 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 as well narrow. They describe the symptoms, not the disease. Breaking the older mold of organisation stovepiped purely in executive agencies, we propose a National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) that would infringe the joint, 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 Eye and would replace information technology and other terrorism "fusion centers" within the government. The NCTC would become the authoritative cognition bank, bringing information to bear upon common plans. Information technology should task collection requirements both inside and outside the The states. The NCTC should perform articulation operational planning, assigning pb responsibilities to existing agencies and letting them direct the actual execution of the plans. Placed in the Executive Office of the President, headed past a Senate-confirmed official (with rank equal to the deputy caput of a cabinet section) who reports to the National Intelligence Director, the NCTC would track implementation of plans. It would be able to influence the leadership and the budgets of the counterterrorism operating artillery of the CIA, the FBI, and the departments of Defence and Homeland Security. The NCTC should not be a policymaking torso. Its operations and planning should follow the policy management of the president and the National Security Council. Unity of Attempt: A National Intelligence Director Since long earlier 9/11-and standing to this solar day-the intelligence customs is not organized well for joint intelligence work. Information technology does not utilise common standards and practices in reporting intelligence or in training experts overseas and at dwelling. The expensive national capabilities for collecting intelligence have divided management. The structures are too complex and likewise secret. The community's caput-the Director of Primal Intelligence-has at to the lowest degree three jobs: running the CIA, analogous a 15-agency confederation, and being the intelligence analyst-in-chief to the president. No 1 person can exercise all these things. A new National Intelligence Director should exist established with two main jobs: (1) to oversee national intelligence centers that combine experts from all the collection disciplines against mutual targets- like counterterrorism or nuclear proliferation; and (2) to oversee the agencies that contribute to the national intelligence program, a job that includes setting mutual standards for personnel and information technology. 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 police that reformed the organization of national defense force. The habitation services-such as the CIA, DIA, NSA, and FBI-would organize, train, and equip the best intelligence professionals in the earth, 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 report direct to the president, yet exist 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 endeavor), the NID should have three deputies: For strange intelligence (a deputy who also would be the caput of the CIA) For defense intelligence (as well the under secretarial assistant of defense for intelligence) For homeland intelligence (besides the executive assistant managing director 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 authorization to hire and fire his or her intelligence deputies, and should be able to set common personnel and information technology policies across the intelligence community. The CIA should concentrate on strengthening the collection capabilities of its undercover service and the talents of its analysts, building pride in its core expertise. Secrecy stifles oversight, accountability, and data sharing. Unfortunately, all the current organizational incentives encourage overclassification. This residue should change; and equally a start, open up information should be provided almost the overall size of bureau intelligence budgets. Unity of Effort: Sharing Data The U.South. authorities has admission to a vast amount of data. Just it has a weak system for processing and using what it has. The arrangement of "need to know" should be replaced past a organization of "need to share." The President should lead a authorities-wide effort to bring the major national security institutions into the information revolution, turning a mainframe organization into a decentralized network. The obstacles are not technological. Official after official has urged united states to telephone call attention to bug with the unglamorous "dorsum office" side of authorities operations. But no bureau can solve the bug on its ain-to build the network requires an effort that transcends old divides, solving mutual legal and policy issues in ways that can help officials know what they can and cannot do. Over again, in tackling information issues, America needs unity of attempt. Unity of Effort: Congress Congress took besides lilliputian 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 to minimize national security risks during transitions between administrations. For intelligence oversight, we advise two 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 primal message is the same: the intelligence committees cannot carry out their oversight part unless they are made stronger, and thereby have both clear responsibility and accountability for that oversight. Congress should create a single, chief point of oversight and review for homeland security. There should exist one permanent standing committee for homeland security in each chamber. We advise reforms to speed up the nomination, financial reporting, security clearance, and confirmation procedure for national security officials at the start of an assistants, and suggest steps to make sure that incoming administrations have the information they demand. Unity of Effort: Organizing America'south Defenses in the United States Nosotros have considered several proposals relating to the future of the domestic intelligence and counterterrorism mission. Adding a new domestic intelligence bureau volition not solve America'southward problems in collecting and analyzing intelligence inside the United States. We do non recommend creating one. We propose 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 dwelling house? Responsibility for America's national defense is shared by the Section of Defense, with its new Northern Control, and by the Department of Homeland Security.They must have a clear delineation of roles, missions, and dominance. The Department of Defense force and its oversight committees should regularly assess the adequacy of Northern Command's strategies and planning to defend against military threats to the homeland. The Department of Homeland Security and its oversight committees should regularly assess the types of threats the state faces, in order to determine the capability of the government's plans and the readiness of the regime to respond to those threats. * * * We call on the American people to remember how we all felt on 9/xi, to remember non merely the unspeakable horror but how we came together as a nation-one nation. Unity of purpose and unity of endeavor are the way we will defeat this enemy and make America safer for our children and grandchildren. We look forward to a national debate on the merits of what nosotros 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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