A national commission probing the September 11 attacks on Thursday found ”failures of imagination, policy, capabilities and management” by the United States government and recommended a sweeping overhaul of intelligence services.
In a 567-page report concluding two years of investigation, the 10-member bipartisan commission called for the establishment of a ”national counterterrorism centre” to unify intelligence and operational planning under a new ”national intelligence director”.
The panel issued a broad indictment of US intelligence and air defences in the attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon that left nearly 3 000 people dead and sent the superpower reeling.
”What we can say with confidence is that none of the measures adopted by the US government from 1998 to 2001 disturbed or even delayed the progress of the al-Qaeda plot,” an executive summary said.
”Across the government, there were failures of imagination, policy, capabilities and management,” it said.
The report by the bi-partisan 10-member committee caps nearly two years of work and is sure to fuel a politically charged debate already raging over responsibility for the attacks.
The commission, which interviewed thousands of witnesses and examined mountains of documents, said ”we do not believe leaders understood the gravity of the threat” before September 11 2001, but did not single out either the George Bush or Bill Clinton administrations.
”The terrorist danger from [Osama] Bin Laden and al-Qaeda was not a major topic for policy debate among the public, the media or in the Congress. Indeed it barely came up during the 2000 presidential campaign,” it said.
The commission said that while the 19 al-Qaeda terrorists who used hijacked airliners to demolish the World Trade Centre and punch a hole in the Pentagon were determined and capable, the group was also fragile and vulnerable.
”The enemy made mistakes. The US government was not able to capitalise on them,” it said.
”No president can promise that a catastrophic attack like that of 9/11 can happen again. But the American people are entitled to expect that officials will have realistic objectives, clear guidance and effective organisation,” it added.
The commission said it was impossible to determine whether any single step or series of steps could have thwarted the 9/11 plot but had harsh words for all US agencies.
It said the CIA has only ”minimal capacity” to conduct paramilitary operations and needs to improve its human spy network.
At no point before September 11 was the Department of Defence fully engaged in combating al-Qaeda, the commission said.
It also faulted the North American Aerospace Defence Command, saying its planning scenarios for the possibility of hijacked airliners being used as airborne missiles takes only into account flights from overseas while the capabilities of the Federal Aviation Administration are weak.
”The most seroius weakness 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,” the report said. ”Other domestic agencies deferred to the FBI.”
The commission said terrorism was not an overriding national security concern for either the Clinton or Bush administrations before September 11.
”The policy challenges were linked to this failure of imagination. Officials in both the Clinton and Bush administrations regarded a full US invasion of Afghanistan as practically inconceivable before 9/11,” it said.
The commission listed several recommendations:
- The creation of a national counterterrorism centre ”unifying strategic intelligence and operational planning against Islamist terrorists across the foreign-domestic divide”;
- The establishment of a new national intelligence director to unify the intelligence community;
- Creating a ”network-based information sharing system that transcends traditional governmental boundaries”;
- Strengthening congressional oversight; and
- Strengthening the FBI and homeland defenders.
With security looming as a major issue in November’s presidential election, the Democrats have slammed Bush for massive intelligence failures before the September 11 onslaught and laxity in beefing up homeland security since.
Bush, who received a copy of the report, had insisted on Wednesday there was no way he could have foiled the strikes.
”Had we had any inkling whatsoever that terrorists were about to attack our country, we would have moved heaven and earth to protect America,” he said.
The president met on Thursday with panel leaders to launch what he called a ”full discussion about how best to coordinate the different intelligence-gathering services here in the country”.
But he did not explicitly endorse calls for putting the US intelligence apparatus — currently a hodgepodge of agencies with different missions and answering to different masters — under a new Cabinet-level chief.
The conclusion by the September 11 panel — in previously released material — that there was no operational link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein undermined one of Bush’s main justifications for invading Iraq last year and intensified Democratic assaults on the president’s credibility.
The White House has also been coping with the new allegations that Iran, a member of Bush’s ”axis of evil” but untouched by US military action, let eight of the September 11 hijackers transit through its territory.
”As to direct connections with September 11, we’re digging into the facts to determine if there was one,” Bush said this week.
Tehran has denied providing any support to the terrorist operation.
US now safer
Meanwhile, senior CIA officials said the US is safer now than it was before the September 11 attacks, but al-Qaeda remains a deadly threat.
”We are substantially safer than we were three years ago,” one official said, as the September 11 commission released its final report.
Osama bin Laden’s network has more trouble planning attacks after losing its safe haven in Afghanistan and facing major attacks by Pakistani forces, the official said.
”Pakistan has done heroic work,” one official added.
Al-Qaeda leaders in Saudi Arabia and Yemen have also been ”taken out”, the official said, while warning that the group is ”still highly lethal”.
Al-Qaeda has struggled to replace the senior organisers already captured or killed and the group’s one-time financial backers are now more reluctant to give money because of stepped-up efforts to track down terrorist financing, the official said.
And despite the transatlantic rift over the war in Iraq and the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal, the official said the CIA’s sister agencies in friendly countries have ”crystallised an international, informal coalition”.
”We have partners worldwide who are with us more clearly than they were ever before.”
While the remnants of al-Qaeda remain a concern, one official said regional groups such as Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia and loosely affiliated groups such as those likely behind the Madrid train bombings continue to pose a threat.
Asked if al-Qaeda could again orchestrate massive attacks like September 11, the official said: ”We may see that again, but it doesn’t take that to kill a lot of people.”
”We have damaged this target [al-Qaeda], but this target looks at the US as the brass ring.”
Recent warnings about terrorist threats in the run-up to the November 2 presidential elections are based on ”fairly specific information that they want to come after us”, the official said. — Sapa-AFP