Find, Fix, Finish (5 page)
Authors: Aki Peritz,Eric Rosenbach
The NSC had debated the use of unmanned aerial vehicles throughout the summer and approved a draft of a presidential decision directive establishing a three-year strategy against al-Qaeda. That strategy, however, would never be adopted, and one week after the draft was approved, on 9/11, it would become obsolete. Both the Bush and Clinton administrations failed to act aggressively against nonstate actors, pointing to not only a lack of political will on the part of the executive branch but also to the CIA, the military, and the FBI being either ill equipped or unwilling to carry out the proposed actions.
BLEEDING THE CIAIn 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union, some members of Congress proposed abolishing the CIA,
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and although they were unsuccessful, in 1992 Congress made deep cuts to the IC budget.
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and although they were unsuccessful, in 1992 Congress made deep cuts to the IC budget.
As the Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the United States Intelligence Community found, the cuts were significant. The overall intelligence budget declined by billions of dollars in the 1990s. While the exact amount remains classified, former DCI George Tenet claims that the CIA budget declined by about 18 percent overall.
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In 1995, the FBI allegedly had more special agents in New York City than the CIA had case officers in the entire world.
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In 1995, the FBI allegedly had more special agents in New York City than the CIA had case officers in the entire world.
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The limited funds made cold war–era satellite architecture an increasingly larger part of the intelligence budget. As staff levels fell, the IC fought to continue all proposed satellite projects—partly to take advantage of staggering advancements in satellites that could produce incredibly sharp images, and partly to satisfy the powerful military (and intelligence) industrial complex.
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The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) received an estimated $5 to 7 billion annually during the 1990s—an amount twice CIA’s budget. In 1995 the
Washington Post
reported that the NRO had approximately $1 billion in
excess
funds.
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The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) received an estimated $5 to 7 billion annually during the 1990s—an amount twice CIA’s budget. In 1995 the
Washington Post
reported that the NRO had approximately $1 billion in
excess
funds.
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It was these funds that some members of Congress had intended to cut when they reduced overall IC funding; they argued that tracking troop and missile movements should no longer be the IC’s main priorities. For example, the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), David Boren, argued that the IC should focus on human intelligence: “A satellite photograph cannot detect the actions of a terrorist making explosive devices in an abandoned building.”
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In fact, the CIA’s capacity for HUMINT collection—which would aid in tracking individual substate actors such as al-Qaeda and Hizbollah—substantially decreased during the 1990s.
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The CIA shuttered multiple stations and bases, including fifteen in Africa,
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and the Agency was forced to shift its dwindling numbers of analysts and case officers from threat to threat. Shifting from crisis to crisis to attempt to put out fire after fire—or to prevent new fires from flaring—distracted the CIA from some big-picture concerns. The loss of personnel, combined with a lack of understanding about future threats, left it increasingly unable to create the capabilities necessary for the new era’s challenges.
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The CIA shuttered multiple stations and bases, including fifteen in Africa,
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and the Agency was forced to shift its dwindling numbers of analysts and case officers from threat to threat. Shifting from crisis to crisis to attempt to put out fire after fire—or to prevent new fires from flaring—distracted the CIA from some big-picture concerns. The loss of personnel, combined with a lack of understanding about future threats, left it increasingly unable to create the capabilities necessary for the new era’s challenges.
By the end of the 1990s, an executive branch increasingly aware of the threat of terrorism and al-Qaeda in particular would task the CIA to take the lead in actions it proposed against terrorism. From at least 1997 onward, the Agency emphasized counterterrorism issues, directing analysts to focus on tracking bin Laden and disrupting al-Qaeda’s activities. In December 1998, DCI George Tenet wrote a directive to top CIA staffers: “We are at war. I want no resources or people spared in this effort, either inside CIA or the [Intelligence] Community.”
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Yet few resources were actually shifted as a result of this directive. Although the Agency developed numerous proposals for aggressive operations against bin Laden and provided the targeting information for potential cruise missile strikes against al-Qaeda, almost all of these proposals remained just that: proposals. Before 9/11, the CIA never sent its own case officers after bin Laden, and, as Tenet would later admit, it was the CIA’s seventh floor leadership who would halt almost all of the plans to capture or kill bin Laden, deeming the risks too great.
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A lack of resources was certainly part of the problem. Facing a dwindling staff and fewer assets abroad, HUMINT capabilities withered. And, despite an increase in resources and importance in the late 1990s, the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center (CTC) remained a relative backwater in the Agency, vying with several competing intelligence priorities.
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Those working in the CTC’s Alec Station—the CIA’s first “virtual station” founded in 1996 to deal solely with bin Laden—were considered obsessive in their concerns regarding al-Qaeda and criticized for their “crazed alarmism” regarding terrorism.
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Underscoring that they were not taken seriously, the CIA placed an analyst from the Directorate of Intelligence to serve as the first head of Alec Station—a bureaucratic no-no, given that COS slots were almost exclusively reserved for officers from the Directorate of Operations. CIA veteran Robert Baer, who worked at the Agency from 1976 until 1997, claimed Alec Station “was the Siberia of CIA, located in a bleak office building in Tysons Corner, Virginia.” He recalled, “If you needed someone important to pay attention to you, you had to drive down Route 123 to the main building in Langley. And even then you’d be lucky to get fifteen minutes of anyone’s time.”
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Those working in the CTC’s Alec Station—the CIA’s first “virtual station” founded in 1996 to deal solely with bin Laden—were considered obsessive in their concerns regarding al-Qaeda and criticized for their “crazed alarmism” regarding terrorism.
45
Underscoring that they were not taken seriously, the CIA placed an analyst from the Directorate of Intelligence to serve as the first head of Alec Station—a bureaucratic no-no, given that COS slots were almost exclusively reserved for officers from the Directorate of Operations. CIA veteran Robert Baer, who worked at the Agency from 1976 until 1997, claimed Alec Station “was the Siberia of CIA, located in a bleak office building in Tysons Corner, Virginia.” He recalled, “If you needed someone important to pay attention to you, you had to drive down Route 123 to the main building in Langley. And even then you’d be lucky to get fifteen minutes of anyone’s time.”
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When the executive branch demanded action at the end of the decade, there would be other impediments as well, including the Agency’s oft-cited inability to act decisively. The CIA recognized the threat posed by al-Qaeda, but by 1999 had neither infiltrated nor cultivated sources inside the group. CIA personnel complained about John Deutch’s requirement that they had to get special permission if they intended to recruit assets who were under suspicion of substantial criminal activity—a serious impediment since most people willing to betray secrets usually had other skeletons in their closet. Moreover, Cofer Black, the CTC director in 1999, allegedly told Richard Clarke that he had to get special permission each time he wanted to send a case officer to Afghanistan, even into those regions friendly to the United States.
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Some called this caution practical and even necessary. Covert action, after all, had generated most of the CIA’s bad publicity, despite the fact that it had consumed only a small percentage of the Agency’s activities throughout its existence. Ill-starred operations such as the 1980s mining of Managua harbor in Nicaragua had taught CIA leaders that risk taking without appropriate political cover could land them in a hostile congressional hearing or behind the defendant’s table in a courtroom. This had been the case with the Church and Pike committees, which investigated CIA participation in the overthrow of foreign governments, botched assassinations, the Watergate affair, and other Agency activities of the 1960s and 1970s. George Tenet pointed out the inconsistency: “A succession of administrations would tell them that they were expected to take risks and be aggressive. But if something went wrong, Agency officials faced disgrace, dismissal, and financial ruin.”
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Agency staffers remember this as a time of frustration, for although the sense of urgency regarding terrorism continued to increase, no viable plan of action emerged. Agency operatives and management were uncertain whether they had the legal authority to try to kill bin Laden. Although President Clinton had, in fact, signed a memorandum of notification (MON), the CIA still believed that any operation against bin Laden must aim to capture him and could only kill him as an unintended side effect. These real and perceived legal impediments made planning against him more complicated, as Agency assets in Afghanistan—the Northern Alliance—found the proviso inhibiting to almost every plan they developed.
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An additional option that the NSC considered would later become a centerpiece of US strategy in the Middle East and South Asia: unmanned aerial strikes. At the time, however, when—and whether—to deploy armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), originally developed for reconnaissance purposes, was a titanic struggle among the CIA, the military, and the NSC leadership.
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In September 2000, the CIA and the military jointly launched a test run of the unarmed Predator drone over Afghanistan. The results were promising. The UAV’s cameras twice spotted a tall man in white robes at bin Laden’s compound, Tarnak Farms. But after the Afghan media and the Taliban took note of the drone’s appearances, CIA leadership expressed concern. Agency officers concluded that they would only be able to conduct another five missions before the Taliban shot down a drone, and, according to a deal they reached with the Air Force, the CIA would foot half the bill, or $1.5 million, of any lost aircraft.
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For the CIA, this made reconnaissance flights too costly, and the NSC, the military, and the CIA decided to put off further test runs until the UAV could be outfitted with lethal weaponry.
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For the CIA, this made reconnaissance flights too costly, and the NSC, the military, and the CIA decided to put off further test runs until the UAV could be outfitted with lethal weaponry.
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The CIA’s reticence to engage in the project likely slowed the pace of drone deployment and indicated the bureaucracy’s aversion to counterterrorism innovations.
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According to most accounts, some Agency officers and members of senior leadership (who would eventually go along with the plan) were wary of deploying an armed drone until they understood who would fire the missiles and what the chain of command would be for strike authorization.
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One CIA official claims that the general perception at the Near East Division of the program was “Oh, these harebrained CTC ideas. This is going to be a disaster.”
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INSTITUTIONAL INERTIA AT FBI53
According to most accounts, some Agency officers and members of senior leadership (who would eventually go along with the plan) were wary of deploying an armed drone until they understood who would fire the missiles and what the chain of command would be for strike authorization.
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One CIA official claims that the general perception at the Near East Division of the program was “Oh, these harebrained CTC ideas. This is going to be a disaster.”
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While the CIA attempted to combat terrorists abroad, the FBI, as the premier US law enforcement agency, took the lead in domestic counterterrorism operations. This area—as compared to foreign intelligence and military operations—was found by the 9/11 Commission to have “the most serious weaknesses in agency capabilities.” Two bureaucratic issues emerged repeatedly as root causes of this lack of preparedness: culture and resources.
The Clinton administration viewed the FBI as integral to counterterrorism efforts but prioritized collecting evidence for the prosecution of terrorist attack perpetrators over stopping them before attacks happened. Before 9/11, the FBI possessed a weak domestic counterterrorism intelligence capability. The Bureau employed underqualified intelligence analysts, developed only a small number of intelligence sources, conducted limited intelligence-related surveillance, employed few translators, and maintained “woefully inadequate” information-sharing systems.
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Ironically, this phenomenon was exacerbated by FBI successes. As well as the 1993 World Trade Center attack, the FBI had successfully investigated the 1988 bombing of Pan American Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in which the strength of the Justice Department’s evidence forced Libya to admit responsibility, demonstrating that the FBI could root out those responsible for an attack and giving the appearance that the FBI could protect US citizens from terrorism. The decade prior to 9/11 also saw the successful conviction of five of the perpetrators of the first WTC bombing; Timothy McVeigh of the Oklahoma City bombing; and Omar Abdel-Rahman, also known as the “Blind Sheik,” who had encouraged his followers to attack various New York City landmarks.
Although the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 authorized the Bureau to surveil “agents of a foreign power” for the purpose of collecting foreign intelligence information, a series of procedures and institutionalized beliefs led many agents to believe that passing intelligence to other agents conducting criminal investigations—let alone other agencies, such as the CIA—was impermissible. Many agents claimed this phenomenon, informally referred to as “the wall,” compromised key investigations. According to Attorney General John Ashcroft, “the wall specifically impeded the investigation into Zacarias Moussaoui, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi.
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Records indicate that after the FBI arrested Moussaoui, agents became suspicious of his interest in commercial aircraft and sought approval for a criminal warrant to search his computer. The warrant was then rejected because FBI officials feared breaching the wall.”
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Records indicate that after the FBI arrested Moussaoui, agents became suspicious of his interest in commercial aircraft and sought approval for a criminal warrant to search his computer. The warrant was then rejected because FBI officials feared breaching the wall.”
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Within the FBI, terrorism investigations received relatively little attention.
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FBI agents were rewarded in large part on the basis of arrest, prosecution, and indictment statistics. Counterterrorism operations provided few opportunities to achieve high numbers in these areas, particularly operations that were disruptive or preventative. Most staff and resources were, therefore, assigned to the Bureau’s traditional activities targeting organized criminal syndicates, violent individuals, and drug-related crime where agents routinely conducted physical and electronic surveillance operations, developed sources and informants, ran undercover operations, and invested significant resources to develop an understanding of traditional criminal organizations.
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FBI agents were rewarded in large part on the basis of arrest, prosecution, and indictment statistics. Counterterrorism operations provided few opportunities to achieve high numbers in these areas, particularly operations that were disruptive or preventative. Most staff and resources were, therefore, assigned to the Bureau’s traditional activities targeting organized criminal syndicates, violent individuals, and drug-related crime where agents routinely conducted physical and electronic surveillance operations, developed sources and informants, ran undercover operations, and invested significant resources to develop an understanding of traditional criminal organizations.
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This is not to say, of course, that no attempts were made to shift away from the law enforcement paradigm. After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, FBI director Louis Freeh increased the number of legal at-taché offices abroad, created the FBI counterterrorism division, and arranged for exchanges and cooperation between the FBI and the CIA. He argued that “merely solving this type of crime is not enough; it is equally important that the FBI thwart terrorism before such acts can be perpetrated.”
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Unfortunately several of Director Freeh’s other policies hindered his counterterrorism goals, including his emphasis on a decentralized FBI characterized by strong local efforts but little information sharing.
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Unfortunately several of Director Freeh’s other policies hindered his counterterrorism goals, including his emphasis on a decentralized FBI characterized by strong local efforts but little information sharing.
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