Intelligence Failure! scream the headlines. Why didn’t U.S. intelligence know that between 0900 and 1000 Eastern Daylight Time on 11 September 2001 four airliners would be hijacked and flown as kamikazes into prominent U.S. civilian and military buildings?
Clearly, we did not know those sorts of specifics, and perhaps it would be unrealistic to expect U.S. intelligence to be on top of every terrorist plot. But did our system fail us in a more fundamental way?
Some three weeks before the attack, the State Department warned of expected increased terrorist activity. So the system detected that something was going on; an attack of some sort could be imminent. The most basic component of warning was served. But all anticipated an attack overseas. Perhaps like that on the USS Cole (DDG-67), so put all our ships to sea. Perhaps another embassy bombing, so double-up building security. With regard to a serious attack inside the United States, the prevailing attitude was "It could not happen here."
The most basic function of intelligence is to understand the enemy—to be able to provide reliable information on where he is, in what strength, with what capabilities, and with what long-term intentions (short-term intentions being considerably more difficult to predict). Armed with this knowledge, the single most important role of intelligence is to provide warning. It is unrealistic to expect intelligence to be able to predict every event with precision, but it is not at all unrealistic to expect intelligence to understand capabilities and mind-set and to have a broad grasp of hostile intentions. Clearly, we were mired in conventional thinking and were taken by surprise by the imagination, and sophistication, of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
Historically, we have not done well at predicting dramatic changes in weapons or tactics. Our intelligence penetration of the Japanese Navy during World War II was perhaps the most complete and effective intelligence support provided to operating forces in modern times. Yet, we were surprised by the onslaught of kamikazes at Okinawa and suffered serious casualties because of it. We should have anticipated that a fanatical enemy who repeatedly had demonstrated his willingness to die in suicide attacks might ultimately resort to such tactics.
Similarly, aerial suicide attacks would not be far-fetched for a group of fanatics who repeatedly have demonstrated their willingness to blow themselves up while attacking U.S. barracks and embassies with bomb-laden trucks or an Israeli mall with explosives strapped to their waists. Several studies on terrorism that discussed such forms of attack were pooh-poohed as unrealistic and alarmist. It simply could not happen here.
Intelligence failed not in its inability to predict time and place, but in its inability to think the unthinkable, and to understand the mind-set of the enemy and extrapolate that into warning of what could happen. Here the most dramatic shortfall was in analysis. If additional funding or emphasis is to be placed on antiterrorist intelligence, it might best be spent on intelligence personnel who have language capabilities and cultural insights that allow them to understand the enemy.
Without question, the United States has the finest intelligence collection system in the world. We repeatedly have foiled terrorist attempts to smuggle people or explosives into this country and to conduct attacks abroad. But over the years, we have become dependent on technology—intercepted communications, overhead imagery, etc. These have served us well and remain valuable tools, but they are not very useful if the target does not communicate via radio or telephone and owns no identifiable equipment or facilities that can be observed from the air. Terrorist cells tend to be family or tribal centered and penetrating with agents is most difficult, takes a very long time, and seldom provides any form of instantaneous warning. And here, U.S. intelligence is hindered by a nonsensical law that forbids us to deal with anyone who might be guilty of human rights abuses—as though we could penetrate terrorist cells using missionaries and choir boys.
The intelligence community has failed in another important way. Over the years, our intelligence successes have been so spectacular that the decision makers we serve have come to believe we are, or should be, capable of learning anything, and of learning it in real-time. We have contributed to this misperception by overhyping our capabilities, either in pursuit of bureaucratic ends or in an effort to secure larger budgets. It is incumbent on intelligence to educate the decision makers regarding not only the capabilities of our collection systems but also its limitations.
The final intelligence failure is the most telling, and that is our government’s failure to keep our intelligence capabilities secret. This is partially the fault of the intelligence community in its eagerness to brag about capabilities in search of appropriations, but more usually, the "leak"comes from Congress or a senior leader in the administration. A collection capability revealed too often has become a capability destroyed. If we fail to protect our sources and methods, in time our system will be emasculated and intelligence failures will become a certainty.
Did Intelligence Fail Us?
Freedom Isn't Free Special Section, October 2001
By Rear Admiral T. A. Brooks, USN (Ret.)