Reforming Intelligence: Obstacles to Democratic Control and Effectiveness

Three: U.S. Intelligence Prior to 9/11 and Obstacles to Reform

three u.s. intelligence prior to 9/11 and obstacles to reform William J. Lahneman M any factors contributed to the failure of the U.S. intelligence community (IC) to detect the al Qaeda terrorist network ’s plans to use hijacked commercial aircraft to carry out the suicide attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001. This chapter focuses on those features of IC performance that were affected by the United States’ political tradition based on democratic principles that emphasize and protect the individual freedom of each citizen. From the very beginning of the Republic, these democratic principles have been canonized in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, explicitly limiting the ways in which government can intrude into the private lives of citizens. This emphasis on individual rights presents obstacles to running an intelligence organization. As described in the introduction, intelligence organizations must relyon secrecy, which clashes with thevalues of an open society. In addition, intelligence agencies must routinely use techniques such as electronic eavesdropping and espionage, and they must at least consider the use of techniques such as assassination and other forms of paramilitary operations that are clearly illegal in all societies. While most people involved in national security agree that a double standard must be used—one set of practices where foreign countries are concerned and another set for domestic conduct— the exact nature of these standards and how they have been implemented in the U.S. system has already been highlighted in Chapters 1 and 2. The U.S. IC has experienced a number of events and scandals that have resulted in congressional and blue-ribbon investigations. These panels have produced recommendations that, in many cases, have resulted in laws and executive orders imposing new restrictions or clari- william j. lahneman fying existing limitations on acceptable IC behavior.1 A significant share of this guidance came from a desire to protect the civil rights of U.S. citizens, to restrict the IC from engaging in activities that clashed too strongly with U.S. values, and to prevent the IC from becoming a powerful, independent force not properly accountable to the government and the American people. The 9/11 attacks and subsequent commission report have been the primary impetus for the latest round of intelligence reform.2 Despite ongoing debates about the efficacy of certain courses of action, significant initiatives already have been implemented, and the U.S. IC has undergone its most sweeping reorganization since the end of World War II. And the reform process is far from over. This chapter examines one particular dimension of the reform effort: how did the dynamic tension between the legitimate need for a considerable degree of secrecy in intelligence operations and the defense of the American ideal of individual freedom contribute to the 9/11 intelligence failure? the 9/11 u.s. intelligence failure and its aftermath The attacks al Qaeda carried out on September 11, 2001, are now familiar history in the United States and throughout the world. The response, the Bush administration’s war on terrorism, has placed servicemen and servicewomen from America and many other countries in harm’s way in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other parts of the world. And while U.S. leadership has attempted to track down al Qaeda operatives, multiple efforts were initiated to learn why the government had failed to detect al Qaeda’s plans for the attacks. The families of those who had lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks organized into a particularly influential group that kept the American public focused on this issue. The intelligence community experienced the most scrutiny in this regard, since it is responsible for providing indications and warnings about impending attacks and other threats, but many other parts of the federal government received scrutiny as well. Congress, charged with oversight of the IC, opened an investigation into the events surrounding the attacks,3 and the Congressional Research Service produced unclassified reports periodically to keep Congress informed about the progress of reforms and important issues.4 Executive-branch agencies that might have played a role in prevent74 u.s. intelligence prior to 9/11 ing the attacks, including most of the intelligence agencies, conducted their own investigations and studies.5 Most prominently, the president commissioned a blue-ribbon panel, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States—dubbed the 9/11 Commission...