NCJ Number
194351
Journal
Jane's Terrorism & Security Monitor Dated: April 2002 Pages: 4-6
Date Published
April 2002
Length
3 pages
Annotation
This document investigates the failure of United States intelligence to learn of the September 11 attacks in advance.
Abstract
Those who fear that such intelligence shortcomings remain are becoming increasingly vocal in calling for an investigation into the failure of U.S. intelligence prior to the September 11 attacks. The Senate and House intelligence committees are regarded as part of the problem since they were the ones overseeing the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other intelligence agencies before the attacks. These committees have resisted conducting such an inquiry but under pressure hired L. Britt Snider to conduct their investigation. Snider’s links to the CIA have raised the question of impartiality. Robert Baer, in his recently published book, See No Evil; The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism, argues that the CIA failed to capitalize on opportunities to penetrate terrorist groups, refused to engage in the business of collecting human intelligence, purged assets that might have warned of the impending disaster, and drove from its ranks its most talented case officers. The CIA did nothing to monitor the authors and publishers of radical Islamic pamphlets advocating violence against the United States. There were not enough CIA officers fluent in Arabic. The national security system is designed to fight Soviets rather than suicide bombers. The CIA has a preponderance of Russian specialists left over from the Cold War. At the present time, 90 percent of the annual intelligence budget is spent on high-technology surveillance rather than human intelligence. High-tech surveillance can do little to track adversaries, particularly if they are in the United States legally. The central flaw with the CIA is that it doesn’t take risks. The tendency of the government is not to confront failure and identify its causes.