The 9/11 terrorists penetrated multiple layers of potential protection to prosecute their plan, revealing the high cost of a complacent and uncoordinated defense, according to hearings last week of the commission convened to assess the attacks.
The picture that was presented could be likened to the same “Swiss cheese” paradigm so often used in discussions of aviation safety. In this construct, various layers of defenses against disaster are shown with holes like those in Swiss cheese representing vulnerabilities. When the holes line up, the porous defenses are breached and disaster ensues.
This same Swiss cheese paradigm can be employed to assess aviation security as well as safety. Indeed, last week’s testimony neatly divided into four defensive layers. A sufficient number of vulnerabilities aligned, allowing the 19 terrorists to enter the country and board the aircraft, armed and ready to carry out their deadly plot.
To be sure, an American airliner had not been bombed or hijacked in over a decade, the last disaster having been the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988, but in the mid-to-late 1990s terrorist threats against the United States, and against American aviation in particular, were mounting. Yet the government’s efforts remained disjointed and isolated organizationally. For example, 9-11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean said the record of exchanges between witnesses speaks for itself. “To cite one example,” he said, “a former head of civil aviation security for the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] acknowledged that the first time he heard about the U.S. government’s watchlist of terrorists was – yesterday, during our hearing.”
Through the two days of testimony and deliberations, a number of disturbing observations were presented that challenge whether the U.S. government has really mobilized for a war against terrorism:
- “Terrorist travel intelligence is still seen as a niche effort, interesting for specialists, but not central to counterterrorism.” (Staff Statement No. 1)
- “We also discovered that the [terrorist] travel issues revealed a much larger set of problems, problems in the way we conduct intelligence operations … We did not watchlist three future hijackers in time to stop them.” (Jan. 27 Statement of Chairman Kean and Vice Chair Lee Hamilton)
- “We learned that deadly knives, with blades less than 4 inches long, could be brought aboard aircraft – and apparently were. We learned that the ‘Red Team’ process discovered these weaknesses in our defenses, but their discoveries did not produce needed solutions.” (Jan. 27 Statement of Chairman Kean and Vice Chair Lee Hamilton)
- “If we have one conclusion from our work so far, it is that disrupting terrorist mobility globally is at least as important as disrupting terrorist finance as an integral part of counterterrorism.” (Staff Statement No. 1)
- “We are not sure that these problems … are even adequately acknowledged as a problem.” (Staff Statement No. 2)
- “We are still concerned about whether old problems in sharing information are being solved, or just replaced by new ones. For example, the Terrorist Threat Integration Center only coordinates analysis, not operations. Then we heard the Terrorist Threat Integration Center does not sift the information from domestic agencies like the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation], just information from international sources. So the domestic-foreign divide takes a new form.” (Jan. 26 Statement of Chairman Kean and Vice Chair Lee Hamilton)
The 9-11 Commission’s work goes beyond the intelligence failures documented in the House/Senate joint intelligence committees’ inquiry into the 9/11 attacks. That exhaustive December 2002 report showed a failure to perceive the growing frequency of indicators that a terrorist attack was coming (see ASW, Sept. 15, 2003).
The 9-11 Commission’s work is revealing more than a failure of threat perception. Rather, it is documenting a failure of process, and it is showing where the seminal efforts of certain individuals within various government agencies were undercut by a lack of organizational focus. Depending upon how far the members of the 9-11 Commission wish to pursue the matter of individual accountability, the final outcome report – with the revelations thus far as portent – is likely to be a searing indictment of ineptitude.
Chairman Kean indicated that, with 900 interviews and reams of documents to digest, he has asked for a 60-day extension, to July 26 from the May 27 deadline originally established for the commission. (ASW note: all documents referenced above can be accessed at www.9-11commission.gov)