Section 50 of the 9-11 Commission Report. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Philippa Chantry. The 9-11 Commission Report by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. Section 50. Protect against and prepare for terrorist attacks. In the nearly three years since 9-11, Americans have become better protected against terrorist attack. Some of the changes are due to government action, such as new precautions to protect aircraft. A portion can be attributed to the sheer scale of spending and effort. Publicity and the vigilance of ordinary Americans also make a difference. But the President and other officials acknowledge that although Americans may be safer, they are not safe. Our report shows that the terrorists analyse defences. They plan accordingly. Defences cannot achieve perfect safety. They make targets harder to attack successfully. And they deter attacks by making capture more likely. Just increasing the attackers odds of failure may make the difference between a plan attempted or a plan discarded. The enemy may also have to develop more elaborate plans, thereby increasing the danger of exposure or defeat. Protective measures also prepare for the attacks that may get through, containing the damage and saving lives. Terrorist travel. More than 500 million people annually cross US borders at legal entry points. About 330 million of them non-citizens. Another 500,000 or more enter illegally without inspection across America's thousands of miles of land borders. All remain in the country past the expiration of their permitted stay. The challenge for national security in an age of terrorism is to prevent the very few people who may pose overwhelming risks from entering or remaining in the United States undetected. In the decade before September 11, 2001, border security, encompassing travel, entry and immigration, was not seen as a national security matter. Public figures voiced concern about the war on drugs, the right level and kind of immigration, problems along the southwest border, migration crises originating in the Caribbean and elsewhere, or the growing criminal traffic in humans. The immigration system as a whole was widely viewed as increasingly dysfunctional and badly in need of reform. In national security circles, however, only smuggling of weapons of mass destruction carried weight, not the entry of terrorists who might use such weapons or the presence of associated foreign-born terrorists. For terrorists, travel documents are as important as weapons. Terrorists must travel clandestinely to meet, train, plan, case targets and gain access to attack. To them, international travel presents great danger because they must surface to pass through regulated channels, present themselves to border security officials or attempt to circumvent inspection points. In their travels, terrorists use evasive methods such as altered and counterfeit passports and visas, specific travel methods and routes, liaisons with corrupt government officials, human smuggling networks, supportive travel agencies and immigration and identity fraud. These can sometimes be detected. Before 9-11, no agency of the US government systematically analysed terrorists' travel strategies. Had they done so, they could have discovered the ways in which the terrorist predecessors to Al Qaeda had been systematically but detectably exploiting witnesses in our border security since the early 1990s. We found that as many as 15 of the 19 hijackers were potentially vulnerable to interception by border authorities. Analyzing their characteristic travel documents and travel patterns could have allowed authorities to intercept four to 15 hijackers. A more effective use of information available in US government database could have identified up to three hijackers. Looking back, we can also see that the routine operations of our immigration laws, that is, aspects of those laws not specifically aimed at protecting against terrorism, inevitably shaped Al Qaeda's planning and opportunities. Because they were deemed not to be bonafide tourists or students, as they claimed, five conspirators that we know of tried to get visas and failed, and one was denied entry by an inspector. We also found that had the immigration system set a higher bar for determining whether individuals are who they claim to be and ensuring routine consequences for violations, it could potentially have excluded, removed, or come into further contact with several hijackers who did not appear to meet the terms for admitting short-term visitors. Our investigation shows that two systemic weaknesses came together in our border system's inability to contribute to an effective defence against the 9-11 attacks. A lack of a well-developed counter-terrorism measures as a part of border security and an immigration system not able to deliver on its basic commitments, much less support counter-terrorism. These weaknesses have been reduced but are far from being overcome. Recommendation. Targeting travel is at least as powerful a weapon against terrorists as targeting their money. The United States should combine terrorist travel intelligence, operations and law enforcement in a strategy to intercept terrorists, find terrorist travel facilitators and constrain terrorist mobility. Since 9-11, significant improvements have been made to create an integrated watch list that makes terrorist name information available to border and law enforcement authorities. However, in the already difficult process of merging border agencies in the new Department of Homeland Security, changing the engine while flying, as one official put it, new insights into terrorist travel have not yet been integrated into the front lines of border security. The small terrorist travel intelligence collection and analysis program currently in place has produced disproportionately useful results. It should be expanded. Since officials at the borders encounter travellers and their documents first and investigate travel facilitators, they must work closely with intelligence officials. Internationally and in the United States, constraining terrorist travel should become a vital part of counter-terrorism strategy. Better technology and training to detect terrorist travel documents are the most important immediate steps to reduce America's vulnerability to clandestine entry. Every stage of our border and immigration system should have as a part of its operations the detection of terrorist indicators on travel documents. Information systems are able to authenticate travel documents and detect potential terrorist indicators should be used at consulates, at primary border inspection lines, in immigration services offices, and in intelligence and enforcement units. All frontline personnel should receive some training. Dedicated specialists and ongoing linkages with the intelligence community are also required. The Homeland Security Department's Directorate of Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection should receive more resources to accomplish its mission as the bridge between the frontline border agencies and the rest of the government counter-terrorism community. A biometric screening system. When people travel internationally, they usually move through defined channels or portals. They may seek to acquire a passport. They may apply for a visa. They stop at ticket counters, gates, and exit controls at airports and seaports. Upon arrival, they pass through inspection points. They may transit to another gate to get on an airplane. Once inside the country, they may seek another form of identification and try to enter a government or private facility. They may seek to change immigration status in order to remain. Each of these checkpoints or portals is a screening, a chance to establish that people are who they say they are and are seeking access for their stated purpose to intercept identifiable suspects and to take effective action. The job of protection is shared among these many defined checkpoints. By taking advantage of them all, we need not depend on any one point in the system to do the whole job. The challenge is to see the common framework across agencies and functions and develop a conceptual framework and architecture for an effective screening system. Throughout government and indeed in private enterprise, agencies and firms at these portals confront recurring judgments that balance security, efficiency, and civil liberties. These problems should be addressed systematically, not in an agged-hoc, fragmented way. For example, what information is an individual required to present and in what form? A fundamental problem now beginning to be addressed is the lack of standardised information in feeder documents used in identifying individuals. Biometric identifiers that measure unique physical characteristics such as facial features, fingerprint or iris scans and reduce them to digitised numerical statements called algorithms are just beginning to be used. Travel history, however, is still recorded in passports with entry-exit stamps called cache, which al-Qaeda has trained its operatives to forge and used to conceal their terrorist activities. How will the individual and the information be checked? There are many databases just in the United States for terrorist, criminal and immigration history as well as financial information, for instance. Each is set up for different purposes and stores different kinds of data under varying rules of access. Nor is access always guaranteed. Acquiring information held by foreign governments may require pains-taking negotiations and records that are not yet digitised are difficult to search or analyse. The development of terrorist indicators has hardly begun and behavioural cues remain important. Who will screen individuals and what will they be trained to do? A wide range of border, immigration and law enforcement officials encounter visitors and immigrants and they are given little training in terrorist travel intelligence. Fraudulent travel documents, for instance, are usually returned to travellers who are denied entry without further examination for terrorist trademarks, investigation as to their source or legal process. What are the consequences of finding a suspicious indicator and who will take action? One risk is that responses may be ineffective or produce no further information. Four of the 9-11 attackers were pulled into secondary border inspection but then admitted. More than half of the 19 hijackers were flagged by the Federal Aviation Administration's profiling system when they arrived for their flights but the consequence was that bags, not people, were checked. Competing risks include false positives or the danger that rules may be applied with insufficient training or judgement. Overreactions can impose high costs too on individuals, our economy and our beliefs about justice. A special note on the importance of trusting subjective judgement. One potential hijacker was turned back by an immigration inspector as he tried to enter the United States. The inspector relied on intuitive experience to ask questions more than he relied on any objective factor that could be detected by scores or a machine. Good people who have worked in such jobs for a long time understand this phenomenon well. Other evidence we obtained confirmed the importance of letting experienced gate agents or security screeners ask questions and use their judgement. This is not an invitation to arbitrary exclusions but any effective system has to grant some scope, perhaps in a little extra inspection or one more check to the instincts and discretion of well trained human beings. Recommendation. The US border security system should be integrated into a larger network of screening points that includes our transportation system and access to vital facilities such as nuclear reactors. The President should direct the Department of Homeland Security to lead the effort to design a comprehensive screening system, addressing common problems and setting common standards with system-wide goals in mind. Extending those standards among other governments could dramatically strengthen America and the world's collective ability to intercept individuals who pose catastrophic threats. We advocate a system for screening, not categorical profiling. A screening system looks for particular identifiable suspects or indicators of risk. It does not involve guesswork about who might be dangerous. It requires frontline border officials who have the tools and resources to establish that people are who they say they are, intercept identifiable suspects and disrupt terrorist operations. The US border screening system. The border and immigration system of the United States must remain a visible manifestation of our belief in freedom, democracy, global economic growth and the rule of law, yet serve equally well as a vital element of counter-terrorism. Integrating terrorist travel information in the ways we have described is the most immediate need. But the underlying system must also be sound. Since September 11, the United States has built the first phase of a biometric screening program called US Visit, the United States Visitor and Immigration Service Indicator Technology Program. It takes two biometric identifiers, digital photographs and prints of two index fingers from travellers. False identities are used by terrorists to avoid being detected on a watch list. These biometric identifiers make such evasions far more difficult. So far, however, only visitors who acquire visas to travel to the United States are covered. Travellers from visa waiver countries will be added to the program beginning this year. Covered travellers will still constitute only about 12% of all non-citizens crossing US borders. Moreover, exit data are not uniformly collected and entry data are not fully automated. It is not clear the system can be installed before 2010, but even this timetable may be too slow given the possible security dangers. Americans should not be exempt from carrying biometric passports or otherwise enabling their identities to be securely verified when they enter the United States, nor should Canadians or Mexicans. Currently, US persons are exempt from carrying passports when returning from Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. The current system enables non-US citizens to gain entry by showing minimal identification. The 9-11 experience shows the terrorists study and exploit America's vulnerabilities. To balance this measure, programs to speed known travellers should be a higher priority, permitting inspectors to focus on greater risks. The daily commuter should not be subject to the same measures as first-time travellers. An individual should be able to pre-enroll with his or her identity verified in passage. Updates of database information and other checks can ensure ongoing reliability. The solution, requiring more research and development, is likely to combine radio frequency technology with biometric identifiers. The current patchwork of border screening systems, including several frequent traveller programs, should be consolidated with the US Visit System to enable the development of an integrated system, which in turn can become part of the wider screening plan we suggest. The program allowing individuals to travel from foreign countries through the United States to a third country without having to obtain a US visa has been suspended. Because transit without visa can be exploited by terrorists to enter the United States, the program should not be reinstated unless and until transit passage areas can be fully secured to prevent passengers from illegally exiting the airport. Inspectors adjudicating entries of the 9-11 hijackers lacked adequate information and knowledge of the rules. All points in the border system, from consular officers to immigration services officers, will need appropriate electronic access to an individual's file. Scattered units at Homeland Security and the State Department perform screening and data mining. Instead, a government-wide team of border and transportation officials should be working together. A modern border and immigration system should combine a biometric entry-exit system with accessible files on visitors and immigrants, along with intelligence on indicators of terrorist travel. Our border screening system should check people efficiently and welcome friends. Admittedly large numbers of students, scholars, business people and tourists fuel our economy, cultural vitality and political reach. There is evidence that the present system is disrupting travel to the United States. Overall, visa applications in 2003 were down over 32% since 2001. In the Middle East they declined about 46%. Training and the design of security measures should be continuously adjusted. Recommendation. The Department of Homeland Security, properly supported by Congress, should complete as quickly as possible a biometric entry-exit screening system, including a single system for speeding qualified travellers. It should be integrated with the system that provides benefits to foreigners seeking to stay in the United States. Linking biometric passports to good data systems and decision-making is a fundamental goal. No one can hide his or her debt by acquiring a credit card with a slightly different name. Yet today a terrorist can defeat the link to electronic records by tossing away an old passport and slightly altering the name in the new one. Completion of the entry-exit system is a major and expensive challenge. Biometrics have been introduced into an antiquated computer environment. Replacement of these systems and improved biometric systems will be required. Nonetheless, funding and completing a biometrics-based entry-exit system is an essential investment in our national security. Exchanging terrorist information with other countries, consistent with privacy requirements, along with listings of lost and stolen passports, will have immediate security benefits. We should move toward real-time verification of passports with issuing authorities. The further away from our borders that screening occurs, the more security benefits we gain. At least some screening should occur before a passenger departs on a flight destined for the United States. We should also work with other countries to ensure effective inspection regimes at all airports. The international community arrives at international standards for the design of passports through the International Civil Aviation Organization, IKO. The global standard for identification is a digital photograph. Fingerprints are optional. We should work with others to improve passport standards and provide foreign assistance to countries that need help in making the transition. Recommendation. The U.S. government cannot meet its own obligations to the American people to prevent the entry of terrorists without a major effort to collaborate with other governments. We should do more to exchange terrorist information with trusted allies, and raise U.S. and global border security standards for travel and border crossing for medium and long-term through extensive international cooperation. Immigration law and enforcement. Our borders and immigration system, including law enforcement, ought to send a message of welcome, tolerance and justice to members of immigrant communities in the United States and in their countries of origin. We should reach out to immigrant communities. Good immigration services are one way of doing so that is valuable in every way, including intelligence. It is elemental to border security to know who is coming into the country. Today, more than nine million people are in the United States outside of the legal immigration system. We must also be able to monitor and respond to entrances between our ports of entry, working with Canada and Mexico as much as possible. There is a growing role for state and local law enforcement agencies. They need more training and work with federal agencies so that they can cooperate more effectively with those federal authorities in identifying terrorist suspects. Orbit one of the 9-11 hijackers acquired some form of US identification document, some by fraud. Acquisition of these forms of identification would have assisted them in boarding commercial flights, renting cars and other necessary activities. Recommendation. Secure identification should begin in the United States. The federal government should set standards for the issuance of birth certificates and sources of identification, such as driver's licenses. Fraud and identification documents is no longer just a problem of theft. At many entry points to vulnerable facilities, including gates for boarding aircraft, sources of identification are the last opportunity to ensure that people are who they say they are and to check whether they are terrorists. Strategies for aviation and transportation security. The US transportation system is vast and in an open society impossible to secure completely against terrorist attacks. There are hundreds of commercial airports, thousands of planes and tens of thousands of daily flights carrying more than half a billion passengers a year. Millions of containers are imported annually through more than 300 sea and river ports, served by more than 3,700 cargo and passenger terminals. About 6,000 agencies provide transit services through buses, subways, ferries and light rail service to about 14 million Americans each weekday. In November 2001, Congress passed and the President signed the Aviation and Transportation Security Act. This act created the Transportation Security Administration, which is now part of the Homeland Security Department. In November 2002, both the Homeland Security Act and the Maritime Transportation Security Act followed. These laws required the development of strategic plans to describe how the new Department and TSA would provide security for critical parts of the US transportation sector. Over 90% of the nation's $5.3 billion annual investment in the TSA goes to aviation to fight the last war. The money has been spent mainly by Congressional mandates to federalise the security checkpoint screeners and to deploy existing security methods and technologies at airports. The current efforts do not yet reflect a forward-looking strategic plan systematically analysing assets, risks, costs and benefits. Lacking such a plan, we are not convinced that our transportation security resources are being allocated to the greatest risks in a cost-effective way. Major vulnerabilities still exist in cargo and general aviation security. These, together with inadequate screening and access controls, continue to present aviation security challenges. While commercial aviation remains a possible target, terrorists may turn their attention to other modes. Opportunities to do harm are as great or greater in maritime or surface transportation. Initiatives to secure shipping containers have just begun. Surface transportation systems such as railroads and mass transit remain hard to protect because they are so accessible and extensive. Despite congressional deadlines, the TSA has developed neither an integrated strategic plan for the transportation sector nor specific plans for the various modes, air, sea and ground. Recommendation. Hard choices must be made in allocating limited resources. The US government should identify and evaluate the transportation assets that need to be protected, set risk-based priorities for defending them, select the most practical and cost-effective ways of doing so and then develop a plan, budget and funding to implement the effort. The plan should assign roles and missions to the relevant authorities, federal, state, regional and local, and to private stakeholders. In measuring effectiveness, perfection is unattainable, but terrorists should perceive that potential targets are defended. They should be deterred by a significant chance of failure. Congress should set a specific date for the completion of these plans and hold the Department of Homeland Security and TSA accountable for achieving them. The most powerful investments may be for improvements in technologies with applications across the transportation modes, such as scanning technologies designed to screen containers that can be transported by plane, ship, truck or rail. Though such technologies are becoming available now, widespread deployment is still years away. In the meantime, the best protective measures may be to combine improved methods of identifying and tracking the high-risk containers, operators and facilities that require added scrutiny with further efforts to integrate intelligence analysis, effective procedures for transmitting threat information to transportation authorities and vigilance by transportation authorities and the public. A layered security system No single security measure is foolproof. Accordingly, the TSA must have multiple layers of security in place to defeat the more plausible and dangerous forms of attack against public transportation. The plan must take into consideration the full array of possible enemy tactics, such as use of insiders, suicide terrorism or stand-off attack. Each layer must be effective in its own right. Each must be supported by other layers that are redundant and coordinated. The TSA should be able to identify for Congress the array of potential terrorist attacks, the layers of security in place and the reliability provided by each layer. TSA must develop a plan as described above to improve weak individual layers and the effectiveness of the layered systems it deploys. On 9-11, the 19 hijackers were screened by a computer-assisted screening system called CAPS. More than half were identified for further inspection, which applied only to their checked baggage. Under current practices, air carriers enforce government orders to stop certain known and suspected terrorists from boarding commercial flights and to apply secondary screening procedures to others. The no-fly and automatic select delists include only those individuals who the US government believes pose a direct threat to attacking aviation. Because air carriers implement the program, concerns about sharing intelligence information with private firms and foreign countries keep the US government from listing all terrorist and terrorist suspects who should be included. The TSA has planned to take over this function when it deploys a new screening system to take the place of CAPS. The deployment of this system has been delayed because of claims it may violate civil liberties. Recommendation. Improved use of no-fly and automatic select delists should not be delayed while the argument about a successor to CAPS continues. This screening function should be performed by the TSA and it should utilize the largest set of watch lists maintained by the federal government. Air carriers should be required to supply the information needed to test and implement this new system. CAPS is still part of the screening process, still profiling passengers, with the consequences of selection now including personal searches of the individual and carry-on bags. The TSA is dealing with the kind of screening issues that are being encountered by other agencies. As we mentioned earlier, these screening issues need to be elevated for high-level attention and addressed promptly by the government. Working through these problems can help clear the way for the TSA's screening improvements. And would help many other agencies too. The next layer is the screening checkpoint itself. As the screening system tries to stop dangerous people, the checkpoint needs to be able to find dangerous items. Two reforms are needed soon. Screening people for explosives, not just their carry-on bags, and improved screener performance. Recommendation. The TSA and the Congress must give priority attention to improving the ability of screening checkpoints to detect explosives on passengers. As a start, each individual selected for special screening should be screened for explosives. Further, the TSA should conduct a human factors study, a method often used in the private sector to understand problems in screener performance and set attainable objectives for individual screeners and for the checkpoints where screening takes place. Concerns also remain regarding the screening and transport of checked bags and cargo. More attention and resources should be directed to reducing or mitigating the threat posed by explosives in vessels' cargo holds. The TSA should expedite the installation of advanced in-line baggage screening equipment. Because the aviation industry will derive substantial benefits from this deployment, it should pay a fair share of the costs. The TSA should require that every passenger aircraft carrying cargo must deploy at least one hardened container to carry any suspect cargo. TSA also needs to intensify its efforts to identify, track and appropriately screen potentially dangerous cargo in both the aviation and maritime sectors. The Protection of Civil Liberties. Many of our recommendations call for the government to increase its presence in our lives, for example by creating standards for the issuance of forms of identification, by better securing our borders, by sharing information gathered by many different agencies. We also recommend the consolidation of authority over the now far-flung entities constituting the intelligence community. The Patriot Act vests substantial powers in our federal government. We have seen the government use the immigration laws as a tool in its counter-terrorism effort. Even without the changes we recommend, the American public has vested enormous authority in the US government. At our first public hearing on March 31st, 2003, we noted the need for balance as our government responds to the real and ongoing threat of terrorist attacks. The terrorists have used our open society against us. In wartime government calls for greater powers and then the need for those powers recedes after the war ends. This struggle will go on. Before, while protecting our homeland, Americans should be mindful of threats to vital personal and civil liberties. This balancing is no easy task, but we must constantly strive to keep it right. This shift of power and authority to the government calls for an enhanced system of checks and balances to protect the precious liberties that are vital to our way of life. We therefore make three recommendations. First, as we will discuss in Chapter 13, to open up the sharing of information across so many agencies and with the private sector, the President should take responsibility for determining what information can be shared by which agencies and under what conditions. Protection of privacy rights should be one key element of this determination. Recommendation. As the President determines the guidelines for information sharing among government agencies and by those agencies with the public sector, he should safeguard the privacy of individuals about whom information is shared. Second, Congress responded in the immediate aftermath of 9-11 with the Patriot Act, which vested substantial new powers in the investigative agencies of the government. Some of the most controversial provisions of the Patriot Act are to sunset at the end of 2005. Many of the Act's provisions are relatively non-controversial, updating America's surveillance laws to reflect technological developments in a digital age. Some executive actions that have been criticised are unrelated to the Patriot Act. The provisions in the Act that facilitate the sharing of information among intelligence agencies and between law enforcement and intelligence appear on balance to be beneficial. Because of concerns regarding the shifting balance of power to the government, we think that a full and informed debate on the Patriot Act would be healthy. Recommendation. The burden of proof for retaining a particular governmental power should be on the executive to explain, A, that the power actually materially enhances security and B, that there is adequate supervision of the executive's use of the powers to ensure protection of civil liberties. If the power is granted, there must be adequate guidelines and oversight to properly confine its use. Third, during the course of our inquiry, we were told that there is no office within the government whose job it is to look across the government at the actions we are taking to protect ourselves to ensure that liberty concerns are appropriately considered. If, as we recommend, there is substantial change in the way we collect and share intelligence, there should be a voice within the executive branch for those concerns. Many agencies have privacy offices, albeit of limited scope. The Intelligence Oversight Board of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board has in the past had the job of overseeing certain activities of the intelligence community. Recommendation. At this time of increased and consolidated government authority, there should be a board within the executive branch to oversee adherence to the guidelines we recommend and the commitment the government makes to address civil liberties. We must find ways of reconciling security with liberty since the success of one helps protect the other. The choice between security and liberty is a false choice, as nothing is more likely to endanger America's liberties than the success of a terrorist attack at home. A history has shown us that insecurity threatens liberty. Yet, if our liberties are curtailed, we lose the values that we are struggling to defend. Setting priorities for national preparedness. Before 9-11, no executive department had, as its first priority, the job of defending America from terrorist attack. That changed with the 2002 creation of the Department of Homeland Security. This department now has the lead responsibility for problems that feature so prominently in the 9-11 story, such as protecting borders, securing transportation and other parts of our critical infrastructure, organising emergency assistance and working with the private sector to assess vulnerabilities. Throughout the government, nothing has been harder for officials, executive or legislative than to set priorities, making hard choices in allocating limited resources. These difficulties have certainly afflicted the Department of Homeland Security, hamstrung by its many congressional overseers. In delivering assistance to state and local governments, we heard, especially in New York, about imbalances in the allocation of money. The argument concentrates on two questions. First, how much money should be set aside for criteria not directly related to risk? Currently, a major portion of the billions of dollars apportioned for state and local assistance is allocated so that each state gets a certain amount, or an allocation based on its population wherever they live. Recommendation Homeland Security assistance should be based strictly on an assessment of risks and vulnerabilities. Now, in 2004, Washington, D.C. and New York City are certainly at the top of any such list. We understand the contention that every state and city needs to have some minimum infrastructure for emergency response, but Federal Homeland Security assistance should not remain a program of general revenue sharing. It should supplement state and local resources based on the risks or vulnerabilities that merit additional support. Congress should not use this money as a pork barrel. The second question is can useful criteria to measure risk and vulnerability be developed that assess all the many variables? The allocation of funds should be based on an assessment of threats and vulnerabilities. That assessment should consider such factors as population, population density, vulnerability and the presence of critical infrastructure within each state. In addition, the Federal Government should require each state receiving Federal Emergency Preparedness funds to provide an analysis based on the same criteria to justify the distribution of funds in that state. In a free for all over money it is understandable that representatives will work to protect the interests of their home states or districts but this issue is too important for politics as usual to prevail. Resources must be allocated according to vulnerabilities. We recommend that a panel of security experts be convened to develop written benchmarks for evaluating community needs. We further recommend that Federal Homeland Security funds be allocated in accordance with those benchmarks and that states should be required to abide by those benchmarks in dispersing the Federal funds. The benchmarks will be imperfect and subjective. They will continually evolve but hard choices must be made. Those who would allocate money on a different basis should then defend their view of the national interest. Command control and communications. The attacks on 9-11 demonstrated that even the most robust emergency response capabilities can be overwhelmed if an attack is large enough. Teamwork, collaboration and cooperation at an incident site are critical to a successful response. Key decision makers who are represented at the incident command level help to ensure an effective response. The efficient use of resources and respond to safety. Regular joint training at all levels is moreover essential to ensuring close coordination during an actual incident. Recommendation Emergency response agencies nationwide should adopt the incident command system. When multiple agencies or multiple jurisdictions are involved they should adopt a unified command. Both are proven frameworks for emergency response. We strongly support the decision that Federal Homeland Security funding will be contingent as of October 1, 2004 for the protection and regular use of ICS and unified command procedures. In the future the Department of Homeland Security should consider making financing contingent on aggressive and realistic training in accordance with ICS and unified command procedures. The attacks of September 11, 2001 overwhelmed the response capacity of most of the jurisdictions where the hijacked airliners crashed. While many jurisdictions have established mutual aid compacts, a serious obstacle to multi-jurisdictional response has been the lack of indemnification for mutual aid responders in areas such as the National Capital Region. Public safety organisations, chief administrative officers, state emergency management agencies and the Department of Homeland Security should develop a regional focus within the emergency responder community and promote multi-jurisdictional mutual assistance compacts. Where such compacts already exist training in accordance with their terms should be required. Congress should pass legislation to remedy the longstanding indemnification and liability impediments to the provision of public safety mutual aid in the National Capital Region and were applicable throughout the nation. The inability to communicate was a critical element as the World Trade Centre, Pentagon and Somerset County, Pennsylvania crash sites where multiple agencies and multiple jurisdictions responded. The occurrence of this problem at three very different sites is strong evidence that compatible and adequate communications among public safety organisations at the local, state and federal levels remains an important problem. Recommendation Congress should support pending legislation which provides for the expedited and increased assignment of radio spectrum for public safety purposes. Furthermore, high-risk urban areas such as New York City and Washington DC should establish signal core units to ensure communications connectivity between and among civilian authorities, local first responders and the National Guard. Federal funding of such units should be given high priority by Congress. Private sector preparedness The mandate of the Department of Homeland Security does not end with government. The department is also responsible for working with the private sector to ensure preparedness. This is entirely appropriate for the private sector controls 85% of the critical infrastructure in the nation. Indeed, unless a terrorist's target is a military or other secure government facility the first first responders will almost certainly be civilians. Homeland security and national preparedness therefore often begins with the private sector. Preparedness in the private sector and public sector for rescue, restart and recovery operations should include one, a plan for evacuation two, adequate communications capabilities and three, a plan for continuity of operations. As we examined the emergency response in 9-11, witness after witness told us that despite 9-11 the private sector remains largely unprepared for a terrorist attack. We were also advised that the lack of a widely embraced private sector preparedness standard was a principal contributing factor to this lack of preparedness. We responded by asking the American National Standards Institute ANSI to develop a consensus on a national stand for preparedness for the private sector. ANSI convened safety security and business continuity experts from a wide range of industries and associations as well as from federal, state and local government stakeholders to consider the need for standards for private sector emergency preparedness and business continuity. The result of these sessions was ANSI's recommendation that the commission endorse a voluntary national preparedness standard consisting American National Standard on Disaster Emergency Management and Business Continuity Programs NFPA 1600. The proposed National Preparedness Standard establishes a common set of criteria and terminology for preparedness, disaster management, emergency management and business continuity programs. The experience of the private sector in the World Trade Center emergency demonstrated the need for these standards. The recommendation we endorse the American National Standards Institute's recommended standard for private preparedness. We were encouraged by Secretary Tomnage's praise of the standard and urged the Department of Homeland Security to promote its adoption. We also encouraged the insurance and credit rating industries to look closely at a company's compliance with the ANSI standard in assessing its insurability and credit worthiness. The compliance with the standard should define the standard of care owed by a company to its employees and the public for legal purposes. Private sector preparedness is not a luxury. It is a cost-of-doing business in the post-911 world. It is ignored at a tremendous potential cost in lives, money and national security. End of Section 50 Recording by Philippa Chantry, Canberra and 13.1 of the 9-11 commission report. This is a LibriFox recording. All LibriFox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriFox.org Recording by Biddy The 9-11 commission report Chapter 13 How to Do It A different way of organizing the government. As presently configured the national security institutions of the U.S. government are still the institutions constructed to win the Cold War. The United States confronts a very different world today. Instead of facing a few very dangerous adversaries the United States confronts a number of less visible challenges that surpass the boundaries of traditional nation-states and call for quick, imaginative and agile responses. One of the World War II generation rose to the challenge of the 1940s and 1950s. They restructured the government so that it could protect the country. That is now the job of the generation that experienced 9-11. Those attacks showed emphatically that ways of doing business rooted in a different era are just not good enough. Americans should not settle for incremental ad hoc adjustments to a system designed generations ago that no longer exists. We recommend significant changes in the organization of the government. We know that the quality of the people is more important than the quality of the wiring diagrams. Some of the saddest aspects of the 9-11 story are the outstanding efforts of so many individual officials straining often without success against the boundaries of the possible. Good people can overcome bad structures. We have to. The United States has the resources and the people. The government should combine them more effectively achieving unity of effort. We offer five major recommendations to do that. One. Unifying strategic intelligence and operational planning against Islamist terrorists across the foreign domestic divide with the National Counterterrorism Center. Two. Unifying unity with the new National Intelligence Director. Three. Unifying the many participants in the counterterrorism effort and their knowledge in a network-based information sharing system that transcends traditional governmental boundaries. Four. Unifying and strengthening congressional oversight to improve quality and accountability. And five. Strengthening the FBI partners. Chapter 13.1 Unity of Effort Across the Foreign Domestic Divide Much of the public commentary about the 9-11 attacks has dealt with lost opportunities some of which we reviewed in Chapter 11. These are often characterized as problems of watch listing of information sharing or of connecting the dots. In Chapter 11 these labels are too narrow. They describe the symptoms not the disease. In each of our examples no one knows firmly in charge of managing the case and able to draw relevant intelligence from anywhere in the government assign responsibilities across the agencies, foreign or domestic track progress and quickly bring obstacles up to the level where they could be resolved. Responsibility and accountability were diffuse. The agencies cooperated some of the time but even such cooperation as there was is not the same thing as joint action. When agencies cooperate one defines the problem and seeks help with it. When they act jointly the problem and options for action are defined differently from the start. Individuals from different backgrounds come together in analyzing a case and planning how to manage it. In the hearings we regularly ask witnesses who is the quarterback the other players are in their positions doing their jobs but who is calling the play that assigns roles to help them execute as a team. Since 9-11 those issues have not been resolved. In some ways joint work has gotten better and in some ways worse. The effort of fighting terrorism has flooded over many of the usual agency boundaries of the company, the company entity and energy. Attitudes have changed. Officials are keenly conscious of trying to avoid the mistakes of 9-11. They try to share information. They circulate even to the president practically every reported threat however dubious. Partly because of all this effort the challenge of coordinating it has multiplied. Before 9-11 the CIA the FBI played a very secondary role. The engagement of the departments of defense and state was more episodic. Today the CIA is still central but the FBI is much more active along with other parts of the Justice Department. The Defense Department effort is now enormous. Three of his unified commands each headed by a four star general have counter-terrorism as a primary mission. Special Operations Command Central Command both had courted in Florida and Northern Command had courted in Colorado. A new Department of Homeland Security combines formidable resources in border and transportation security along with analysis of domestic vulnerability and other tasks. The State Department has the lead on many of the foreign policy tasks we described in Chapter 12. At the White House the National Security Council NSC now is joined by a parallel presidential advisory structure the Homeland Security Council. So far we have mentioned two reasons for joint action. The virtue of joint planning and the advantage of having someone in charge to ensure a unified effort. There is a third the simple shortage of experts with sufficient skills. The limited pool of critical experts for example skilled counter-terrorism analysts and linguists is being depleted. Expending these capabilities will require not just money but time. Primary responsibility for terrorism analysis has been assigned to the Terrorist Threat Integration Center TTIC created in 2003 based at the CIA headquarters but staffed with representatives of many agencies supporting directly to the director of the central intelligence. Yet the CIA houses another intelligence fusion center the counter-terrorist center that played such a key role before 9-11. A third major analytic unit is at defense in the Defense Intelligence Agency. A fourth concentrating more on homeland vulnerabilities is at the Department of Homeland Security. The FBI is in the process of building the analytic capability it has long lacked and it also has the terrorist screening center. The US government cannot afford so much duplication of effort. There are not enough experienced experts to go around. The duplication also places extra demands on already hard-pressed single source national technical intelligence collectors like the National Security Agency. Combining joint intelligence and joint action a smart government would integrate all sources of information to see the enemy as a whole. Integrated all-source analysis should also inform and shape strategies to collect more intelligence. Yet the terrorist threat integration center while it has primary responsibility for terrorism analysis is formally proscribed from having any oversight or operational authority and is not part of any operational entity other than reporting to the Director of Central Intelligence. The government now tries to handle the problem of joint management informed by analysis of intelligence from all sources in two ways. First, agencies with lead responsibilities for certain problems have constructed their own interagency entities and task forces in order to get cooperation. The counter-terrorist center at CIA for example recruits liaison officers from throughout the intelligence community. The military's central command has its own interagency center recruiting liaison officers from all the agencies from which it might need help. The FBI has joined terrorism task forces in 84 locations to coordinate the activities of other agencies one action may be required. Second, the problem of joint operational planning is often passed to the White House where the NSC staff tries to play this role. The national security staff at the White House both NSC and New Homeland Security Council staff has already become 50% larger since 9-11. But our impression after talking to serving officials is that even this enlarged staff is consumed by meetings on day-to-day issues sifting each day's threat information and trying to coordinate everyday operations. Even as it crowds into every square inch of available office space, the NSC staff is still not sized or funded to be an executive agency. In Chapter 3 we described some of the problems that arose in the 1980s when a White House staff constitutionally insulated from the usual mechanisms of oversight became involved in direct operations. During the 1990s Richard Clark occasionally tried to exercise such authority sometimes successfully but often causing friction. Yet a subtler and more serious danger is that as the NSC staff is consumed by these day-to-day tasks it has less capacity to find the time and detachment needed to advise a president on larger policy issues. That means less time to work on major new initiatives, help with legislative management to steer needed bills through Congress and track the design and implementation of the strategic plans for regions, countries and issues that we discuss in Chapter 12. Much of the job of operational coordination remains with the agencies especially the CIA. There DCI Tenet and his chief aides ran interagency meetings nearly every day to coordinate much of the government's day-to-day work. The DCI insisted he did not make policy and only oversaw its implementation. In the struggle against terrorism these distinctions seem increasingly artificial. Also as the DCI becomes a lead coordinator of its operations it becomes harder to play all the positions other roles including that of analyst in chief. The problem is nearly intractable because of the way the government is currently structured. Lines of operational authority run to the expanding executive departments and they are guarded for understandable reasons. The DCI commands the CIA's personnel overseas. The Secretary of Defense will not yield to others in conveying commands to military forces. The Justice Department will not give up the responsibility of deciding whether to seek arrest warrants. But the result is that each agency or department needs its own intelligence apparatus to support the performance of its duties. It is hard to break down stovepipes when there are so many stoves that are legally and politically entitled to have cast iron pipes Recalling the Goldwater-Nichols legislation of 1986 Secretary Rumsfeld reminded us that to achieve better joint capability each of the armed services had to give up some of their turf and authorities and prerogatives. Today he said the executive branch is stovepiped much like the four services were nearly 20 years ago. He wondered if it might be appropriate to ask agencies to give up some of their existing turf and authority in exchange for a stronger, faster, more efficient, government-wide joint effort. Privately other key officials have made the same point to us. We therefore propose a new institution a civilian-led, unified joint command for counter-terrorism. It should combine strategic intelligence and joint operational planning. In the Pentagon's joint staff which serves the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff intelligence is handled by the J2 Directorate, operational planning by J3 and overall policy by J5. Our concept combines the J2 and J3 functions, intelligence and operational planning in one agency keeping overall policy coordination where it belongs in the National Security Council. Recommendation We recommend the establishment of a National Counterterrorism Center NCTC built on the foundation of the existing Terrorist Threat Integration Center, TTIC. Breaking the older mold of national government organization this NCTC should be a center for joint operational planning and joint intelligence staffed by personnel from the various agencies. The head of the NCTC should have authority to evaluate the performance of the people assigned to the center. Such a joint center should be developed in the same spirit that guided the military's creation of unified joint commands or the shaping of earlier national agencies, like the National Reconnaissance Office which was formed to organize the work of the CIA and several defense agencies in space. NCTC Intelligence The NCTC should lead strategic analysis pulling all-source intelligence foreign and domestic about transnational terrorist organizations with global reach. It should develop net assessments comparing enemy capabilities and intentions against US defenses and countermeasures. It should also provide warning. It should do this work by drawing the efforts of the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security and other departments and agencies. It should task collection requirements both inside and outside the United States. The intelligence function J2 should build on the existing TTIC structure and remain distinct as the National Intelligence Center within the NCTC as the government's principal knowledge bank on Islamist terrorism with the main responsibility for strategic analysis and net assessment. It should absorb a significant portion of the analytical talent now residing in the CIA's counterterrorist center and the DIA's Joint Intelligence Task Force Combating Terrorism JITF CT NCTC Operations The NCTC should perform joint planning. The plans will design operational responsibilities to lead agencies such as State, the CIA, the FBI Defense and its combatant commands, Homeland Security and other agencies. The NCTC should not direct the actual execution of these operations leaving that job to the agencies. The NCTC would then track implementation. It would look across the foreign domestic divide and across agency boundaries, updating plans to follow through on cases. The joint operational planning function J3 will be new to the TTIC structure. The NCTC can draw on analogous work now being done in the CIA and every other involved department of the government as well as reaching out to knowledgeable officials in state and local agencies throughout the United States. The NCTC should not be a policymaking body. Its operations and planning should follow the policy direction of the President and the National Security Council. Consider this hypothetical case. The NSA discovers that a suspected terrorist is traveling to Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. The NCTC should draw on joint intelligence resources including its own NSA counter-terrorism experts to analyze the identities and possible destinations of these individuals. Informed by this analysis the NCTC would then organize and plan the management of the case drawing on the talents and different kinds of experience among the several agency representatives assigned to it. Assigning tasks to the CIA overseas to Homeland Security watching entry points into the United States to the FBI. If military assistance might be needed the Special Operations Command could be asked to develop an appropriate concept for such an operation. The NCTC would be accountable for tracking the progress of the case ensuring that the plan evolved with it and integrating the information into a warning. The NCTC would be responsible for being sure that intelligence gathered from the activities in the field and part of the government's institutional memory about Islamist terrorist personalities, organizations and possible means of attack. In each case the involved agency would make its own senior managers aware of what it was being asked to do. If those agency heads objected and the issue could not easily be resolved then the disagreement about roles and missions could be brought before the National Security Council NCTC Authorities The head of the NCTC should be appointed by the President and should be equivalent in rank to a Deputy Head of Cabinet Department. The head of the NCTC would report to the National Intelligence Director an office whose creation we recommend below placed in the Executive Office of the President. The head of the NCTC would thus also report indirectly to the President. This official's nomination should be confirmed by the Senate and he or she should testify to the Congress as is the case now with other statutory presidential offices like the US Trade Representative. To avoid the fate of other entities with great nominal authority and little real power the head of the NCTC must have the right to concur in the choices of personnel to lead the operating entities of the departments and agencies focused on counter-terrorism specifically including the head of the Counter-Terrorist Center the head of the FBI's Counter-Terrorism Division the commanders of the Defense Department's Special Operations Command and Northern Command and the State Department's Coordinator for Counter-Terrorism. The head of the NCTC should also work with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget developing the President's counter-terrorism budget. There are presidents for surrendering authority for joint planning while preserving an agency's operational control. In the international context NATO commanders may get line authority over forces assigned by other nations. In US Unified Commands commanders plan operations that may involve units belonging to one of the services. In each case procedures are worked out formal and informal to define the limits of the Joint Commander's Authority. The most serious disadvantage of the NCTC is the reverse of its greatest virtue. The struggle against Islamist terrorism is so important that any clear-cut centralization of authority to manage and be accountable for it may concentrate too much power in one place. The proposed NCTC is given the authority of planning the activities of other agencies. Law or executive order must define the scope of such line authority. The NCTC would not eliminate interagency policy disputes. These would still go to the National Security Council. To improve coordination at the White House we believe the existing Homeland Security Council should soon be merged into a single National Security Council. The implementation of the NCTC should help the NSC staff concentrate on its core duties of assisting the President and supporting interdepartmental policymaking. We recognize that this is a new and difficult idea precisely because the authorities we recommend for the NCTC really would as Secretary Rumsfeld foresaw ask strong agencies to give up some of their chervin authority in exchange for a stronger faster, more efficient government-wide joint effort. Countering transnational Islamist terrorism will test whether the US government can fashion more flexible models of management needed to deal with the 21st century world. An argument against change is that the nation is at war and cannot afford to reorganize in midstream. But some of the main innovations of the 1940s and 1950s the creation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and even the construction of the Pentagon itself were undertaken in the midst of war. Surely the country cannot wait until the struggle against Islamist terrorism is over. Surprise when it happens to a government is likely to be a complicated, diffuse bureaucratic thing. It includes neglect of responsibility but also responsibility so poorly defined and so ambiguously delegated that action gets lost. That comment was made more than 40 years ago about Pearl Harbor. We hope another commission writing in the future about another attack does not again find this quotation to be so apt. End of Chapter 13.1 Recording by Biddy Chapter 13.2 of the 911 Commission Report This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to find out how you can volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Mary Rodey The 911 Commission Report Chapter 13.2 Unity of Effort in the Intelligence Community In our first section we concentrated on counter-terrorism discussing how to combine the analysis of information and all sources of intelligence with the joint planning of operations that draw on that analysis. In this section we step back from looking just at the counter-terrorism problem. We reflect on whether the government is organized adequately to direct resources and build the intelligence capabilities it will need not just for countering terrorism but for the broader range of national security challenges in the decades ahead. The Need for Change During the Cold War intelligence agencies did not depend on seamless integration to track and count the thousands of military targets such as tanks and missiles fielded by the Soviet Union and other adversary states. Each agency concentrated on its specialized mission acquiring its own information and then sharing it via formal finished reports. The Department of Defense had given birth to and dominated the main agencies for technical collection of intelligence. Resources were shifted at an incremental pace coping with challenges that arose over years even decades. We summarized the resulting organization of the intelligence community in Chapter 3. It is outlined below. Members of the U.S. Intelligence Community Office of the Director of Central Intelligence which includes the Office of the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence for Community Management the Community Management Staff the Terrorism Threat Integration Center the National Intelligence Council and other community offices The Central Intelligence Agency CIA which performs human source collection all source analysis and advanced science and technology National Intelligence Agencies National Security Agency NSA which performs signals collection and analysis National Geospatial Intelligence Agency NGA which performs imagery collection and analysis National Reconnaissance Office NRO which develops, acquires and launches space systems for intelligence collection other national Reconnaissance programs Departmental Intelligence Agencies Defense Intelligence Agency DIA of the Department of Defense Intelligence Entities of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines Bureau of Intelligence Research, INR of the Department of State Office of Terrorism and Finance Intelligence of the Department of Treasury Office of Intelligence and the Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence Divisions of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice Office of Intelligence of the Department of Energy Directorate of Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection IAIP and Directorate of Coast Guard Intelligence of the Department of Homeland Security The need to restructure the intelligence community grows out of six problems that have become apparent before and after 9-11 Structural Barriers to Performing Joint Intelligence Work National Intelligence is still organized around the collection disciplines of the home agencies and not the joint mission. The importance of integrated all-source analysis cannot be overstated. Without it, it is not possible to connect the dots. No one component holds all the relevant information. By contrast in organizing National Defense the Goldwater Nichols legislation of 1986 created joint commands for operations in the field of the certified command plan. The services, the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, organize, train, and equip their people and units to perform their missions. Then they assigned personnel and units to the joint combatant commander, like the commanding general of the Central Command, SENTCOM. The Goldwater Nichols Act required officers to serve tours outside their service in order to maintain their mission. The culture of the Defense Department was transformed. Its collective mindset moved from service-specific to joint and its operations became more integrated. Lack of common standards and practices across the foreign domestic divide. The leadership of the intelligence community should be able to pool information gathered overseas with information gathered in the United States holding the work, wherever it is done, to a common standard of quality in how it is collected, processed, translated, reported, shared, and analyzed. A common set of personnel standards for intelligence can create a group of professionals better able to operate in joint activities transcending their own service-specific mindsets. Divided management of national intelligence capabilities. While the CIA was once central to our national intelligence capabilities, following the end of the Cold War, it has been less able to influence the use of the nation's imagery and signals intelligence capabilities in three national agencies housed within the Department of Defense. The National Security Agency, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, and the National Reconnaissance Office. One of the lessons learned from the 1991 Gulf War was the value of national intelligence systems, satellites in particular, and precision warfare. Since that war, the Department has appropriately drawn these agencies into its transformation of the military. Helping to orchestrate this transformation is the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, a position established by Congress after 9-11. An unintended consequence of these developments has been the far greater demand made by defense on technical systems, leaving the DCI less able to influence how these technical resources are allocated and used. We capacity to set priorities and move resources. The agencies are mainly organized around what they collect or the way they collect it. But the priorities for collection are national. As the DCI makes hard choices about moving resources, he or she must have the power to reach across agencies and reallocate effort. Too many jobs. The DCI now has at least three jobs. He is expected to run a particular agency, the CIA.  He is expected to be the analyst in chief for the government, sifting evidence and directly briefing the president as his principal intelligence advisor. No recent DCI has been able to do all three effectively. Usually what loses out is the intelligence community, a difficult task even in the best case because the DCI's current authorities are weak. With so much to do, the DCI often has not used even the authority he has. Too complex and secret. Over the decades, the agencies and the rules surrounding the intelligence community have accumulated to a depth that practically defies public information. There are now 15 agencies or parts of agencies in the intelligence community. The community and the DCI's authorities have become arcane matters understood only by initiates after long study. Even the most basic information about how much money is actually allocated to or within the intelligence community and most of its key components are the DCI's responsibility. The current DCI is responsible for community performance but lacks the three authorities critical for any agency head or chief executive officer. One, control over the purse strings. Two, the ability to hire or fire senior managers. And three, the ability to set standards for the information infrastructure and personnel. The DCI over agencies other than the CIA lies in coordinating the budget requests of the various intelligence agencies into a single program for submission to Congress. The overall funding request of the 15 intelligence entities in this program is then presented to the President and Congress in 15 separate volumes. When Congress passes an appropriations bill to allocate money to the intelligence agencies most of their funding is hidden in the defense department in order to keep intelligence spending secret. Therefore, although the House and Senate intelligence committees are the authorizing committees for funding of the intelligence community the final budget review is handled in the defense subcommittee of the appropriations committees. Those committees have no subcommittees just for intelligence members and staff review the requests. The appropriations for the CIA and the national intelligence agencies NSA, NGA, and NRO are then given to the Secretary of Defense. The Secretary transfers the CIA's money to the DCI but disperses the national agencies money directly. Money for the FBI's national security components falls within the appropriations for commerce, justice, and state and goes to the Attorney General. In addition, the DCI lacks higher and fire authority over most of the intelligence community senior managers. For the national intelligence agencies housed in the defense department the Secretary of Defense must seek the DCI's concurrence regarding the nomination of these directors who are presidential appointed but the Secretary may submit recommendations to the president without receiving this concurrence. The DCI cannot fire these officials. The DCI has even less influence over the head of the FBI's national security component who is appointed by the Attorney General in consultation with the DCI. Combining joint work with stronger management we have received recommendations on the topic of intelligence reform from many sources. Other commissions have been over the same ground. Thoughtful bills have been introduced. Most recently a bill by the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Porter-Goss Republican Florida and another by the ranking minority member Jane Harman, Democrat California in the Senate Senators Bob Graham, Democrat Florida and Diane Feinstein Democrat California have introduced reform proposals as well. Past efforts have foundered because the president did not support them because the DCI, the Secretary of Defense or both opposed them and because some proposals lacked merit. We have tried to take stock of these experiences and borrowed from strong elements in many of the ideas that have already been developed by others. Recommendations The current position of Director of Central Intelligence should be replaced by a National Intelligence Director with two main areas of responsibility. One, to oversee national intelligence centers on specific subjects of interest across the U.S. government. And two, to manage the National Intelligence Program and oversee the agencies that contribute to it. First, the National Intelligence Director should oversee national intelligence centers to provide all-sourced analysis and plan intelligence operations for the whole government on major problems. One such problem is counterterrorism. In this case, we believe that the center should be the intelligence entity formerly TTIC inside the National Counterterrorism Center we have proposed. It would sit there alongside the Operations Management Unit we described earlier with both making up the NCTC in the Executive Office of the President. Other national intelligence centers, for instance on counter-proliferation, crime and narcotics and China, would be housed in whatever department or agency is best suited for them. The National Intelligence Director would retain the present DCI's role as the principal intelligence advisor to the president. We hope the president will come to look directly to the directors of the National Intelligence Centers to provide all-sourced analysis in their areas of responsibility balancing the advice of these intelligence chiefs against the contrasting viewpoints that may be offered by department heads at State, Defense, Homeland Security, Justice and other agencies. Second, the National Intelligence Director should manage the National Intelligence Program and oversee the component agencies of the intelligence community. The National Intelligence Director would submit a unified budget for national intelligence that reflects priorities chosen by the National Security Council an appropriate balance among the varieties of technical and human intelligence collection and analysis. He or she would receive an appropriation for national intelligence and a portion the funds to the appropriate agencies in lined with that budget and with authority to reprogram funds among the national intelligence agencies to meet any new priority as counter-terrorism was in the 1990s. The National Intelligence Director should approve and submit nominations to the president of the individuals who would lead the CIA, DIA, FBI Intelligence Office, NSA, NGA, NRO, Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security and other national intelligence capabilities. The National Intelligence Director would manage this national effort with the help of three deputies each of whom would also hold a key position in one of the component agencies. Foreign Intelligence the head of CIA Defense Intelligence the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Homeland Intelligence the FBI's Executive Assistant Director for Intelligence or the Undersecretary of Homeland Security for Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Other agencies in the intelligence community would coordinate their work within each of these three areas largely staying housed in the same departments or agencies that support them now. Returning to the analogy of the Defense Department's organization these three deputies like the leaders of the Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines would have the job of acquiring the systems training the people and executing the operations planned by the National Intelligence Centers and just as the combatant commanders also report to the Secretary of Defense the directors of National Intelligence Centers that is for counter-proliferation crime and narcotics and the rest also would report to the National Intelligence Director. The Defense Department's Military Intelligence Programs the Joint Military Intelligence Program JMIP and the Tactical Intelligence and Related Activities Program TIARA TiARA would remain part of that department's responsibility. The National Intelligence Director would set personnel policies to establish standards for education and training and facilitate assignments at the National Intelligence Centers and across agency lines. The National Intelligence Director also would set information sharing and information technology policies to maximize data sharing as well as policies to protect the security of information. Too many agencies now have an opportunity to say no to change. The National Intelligence Director should participate in an NSC Executive Committee that can resolve differences and priorities among the agencies and bring the major disputes to the President for decision. The National Intelligence Director should be located in the Executive Office of the President This official, who would be confirmed by the Senate and would testify before Congress would have a relatively small staff of several hundred people taking the place of the existing community management offices housed at the CIA. In managing the whole community the National Intelligence Director is still providing a service function. Within the partial exception of his or her responsibilities seeing the NCTC the National Intelligence Director should support the consumers of national intelligence. The President and Policymaking Advisors, such as the Secretaries of State, Defense and Homeland Security and the Attorney General We are weary of too easily equating government management problems with those of the private sector but we have noticed that private firms rely on a powerful CEO who has significant control over how money is spent and can hire or fire leaders of the major divisions assisted by a relatively modest staff while leaving responsibility for execution in the operating divisions. There are disadvantages to separating the position of National Intelligence Director from the job of heading the CIA. For example, the National Intelligence Director will not head a major agency of his or her own and may have a weaker base for support but we believe that these disadvantages are outweighed by several other considerations. The National Intelligence Director must be able to directly oversee intelligence collection inside the United States yet law and custom has counseled against giving such a plain domestic role to the head of the CIA. The CIA will be one among several claimants for funds in setting national priorities. The National Intelligence Director should not be both one of the advocates and the judge of them all. Covert operations tend to be highly tactical, requiring close attention. The National Intelligence Director should rely on the relevant Joint Mission Center to oversee these details helping to coordinate closely with the White House. The CIA will be able to concentrate on building the capabilities to carry out such operations and on providing the personnel who will be directing and executing such operations in the field. Rebuilding the analytic capabilities of the CIA should be a full-time effort and the Director of the CIA should focus on extending its comparative advantages. Recommendation, the CIA Director should emphasize A. Rebuilding the CIA's analytic capabilities B. Transforming the clandestine service by building its human intelligence capabilities C. Developing a stronger language program with high standards and sufficient financial incentives D. Renewing emphasis on recruiting diversity among operations officers so they can blend more easily in foreign cities E. Ensuring a seamless relationship between human source collection and signals collection at the operational level and F. Stressing a better balance between unilateral and liaison operations The CIA should retain responsibility for the direction and execution of clandestine and covert operations as assigned by the relevant National Intelligence Center and authorized by the National Intelligence Director and the President This would include propaganda renditions and non-military disruption We believe, however, that one important area of responsibility should change Recommendation, lead responsibility for directing and executing paramilitary operations whether clandestine or covert should shift to the Defense Department There it should be consolidated with the capabilities for training, direction, and execution of such operations already being developed in the Special Operations Command Before 9-11 the CIA did not invest in developing a robust capability to conduct paramilitary operations with U.S. personnel It relied on proxies instead organized by CIA operatives without the requisite military training The results were unsatisfactory Whether the price is measured in either money or people The United States cannot afford to build two separate capabilities for carrying out the secret military operations secretly operating standoff missiles and secretly training foreign military or paramilitary forces The United States should concentrate responsibility and necessary legal authorities in one entity The post 9-11 Afghanistan President of using joint CIA military teams for covert and clandestine operations was a good one We believe this proposal to be consistent with it Each agency would concentrate on its comparative advantages in building capabilities for joint missions The operation itself would be planned in common The CIA has a reputation for agility in operations The military has a reputation for being methodical and cumbersome We do not know if these stereotypes match current reality They may also be one more symptom of the civil military misunderstandings we described in Chapter 4 It is a problem to be resolved in policy guidance and agency management not in the creation of redundant overlapping capabilities and authorities in such sensitive work The CIA's experts should be integrated into the military training exercises and planning To quote a CIA official now serving in the field One fight, one team Recommendation Finally, to combat the secrecy and complexity we have described the overall amounts of money being appropriated for national intelligence and to its component agencies should no longer be kept secret Congress should pass a separate appropriations act for intelligence defending the broad allocation of how these tens of billions of dollars have been assigned among the varieties of intelligence work The specifics of the intelligence appropriation would remain classified as they are today Opponents of declassification argue that America's enemies could learn about intelligence capabilities by tracking the top line appropriations figure Yet the top line figure by itself provides little insight into U.S. intelligence sources and methods The U.S. government readily provides copious information about spending on its military forces including military intelligence The intelligence community should not be subject to that much disclosure but when even aggregate categorical numbers remain hidden it is hard to judge priorities and foster accountability End of Chapter 13.2 Chapter 13.3 of the 911 commission report This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to find out how you can volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The 911 commission report Chapter 13.3 Unity of Effort in Sharing Information Information Sharing We have already stressed the importance of intelligence analysis that can draw on all relevant sources of information The biggest impediment to all source analysis to a greater likelihood of connecting the dots is the human or systemic distance to sharing information The US government has access to a vast amount of information When databases not usually thought of as intelligence such as customs or immigration information are included the storehouse is immense but the US government has a weak system for processing and using what it has In interviews around the government official after official urged us to call attention to frustrations with the unglamorous back office side of government operations In the 911 story for example we sometimes see examples of information that could be accessed like the undistributed NSA information that would have helped identify Nawaf al-Hazmi in January 2000 but someone had to ask for it in that case and did or as in the episodes we described in chapter 8 the information is distributed but in a compartmented channel or the information is available and someone does ask but it cannot be shared What all these stories have in common is a system that requires a demonstrated need to know before sharing This approach assumes it is possible to know in advance the need to use the information Such a system implicitly assumes that the risk of inadvertent disclosure outweighs the benefits of wider sharing Those cold war assumptions are no longer appropriate The culture of agencies feeling they own the information they gathered at taxpayer expense must be replaced by a culture in which the agencies instead feel they have a duty to the information to repay the taxpayer's investment by making that information available Each intelligence agency has its own security practices outgrowth of the cold war We certainly understand the reason for these practices Connor intelligence concerns are still real even if the old Soviet enemy has been replaced by other spies But the security concerns need to be weighed against the costs Current security requirements nurture overclassification and excessive compartmentation of information among agencies Each agency's incentive structure opposes sharing with risks, criminal, civil and internal administrative sanctions but few rewards for sharing information No one has to pay the long-term costs of overclassifying information and these costs even in literal financial terms are substantial There are no punishments for not sharing information Agencies uphold a need to know culture of information protection rather than promoting a need to share culture of integration Recommendation Information procedures should provide incentives for sharing to restore a better balance between security and shared knowledge Intelligence gathered about transnational terrorism should be processed, turned into reports and distributed according to the same quality standards whether it is collected in Pakistan or in Texas The logical objection is that sources and methods may vary greatly in different locations We therefore propose that when a report is first created its data be separated from the sources and methods by which they are obtained The report should begin with the information in its most shareable but still meaningful form Therefore the maximum number of recipients can access some form of that information If knowledge of further details becomes important any user can query further with access granted or denied according to the rule set for the network and with queries leaving an audit trail in order to determine who accessed the information But the questions may not come at all unless experts at the edge of the network can readily discover the clues that prompt to them We propose that information be shared horizontally across new networks that transcend individual agencies The current system is structured of an old mainframe or hub and spoke concept In this older approach each agency has its own database Agency users send information to the database and then can retrieve it from the database A decentralized network model the concept behind much of the information revolution shares data horizontally too Agencies would still have their own databases but those databases would be searchable across agency lines In this system secrets are protected through the design of the network and an information rights management approach that controls access to the data not access to the whole network An outstanding conceptual framework for this kind of trusted information network has been developed by a task force of leading professionals of national security information technology and law assembled by the Markle Foundation Its report has been widely discussed throughout the US government and has not yet been converted into action Recommendation The President should lead the government wide effort to bring the major national security institutions into the information revolution of the legal, policy and technical issues across agencies to create a trusted information network No one agency can do it alone Well-meaning agency officials are under tremendous pressure to update their systems Alone they may only be able to modernize the stovepipes not replace them Only presidential leadership can develop government-wide standards. Currently no one is doing this job Backed by the Office of Management and Budget, a new National Intelligence Director empowered to set common standards for information used throughout the community and a Secretary of Homeland Security who helps extend the system to public agencies and relevant private sector databases a government-wide initiative can succeed White House leadership is also needed because the policy and legal issues are harder than the technical ones The necessary technology already exists What does not are the rules for acquiring, accessing sharing and using the vast stores of public and private data that may be available When information sharing works it is a powerful tool Therefore the sharing and uses of information must be guided by a set of practical policy guidelines that simultaneously empower and constrain officials telling them clearly what is and is not permitted This is government acting in new ways to face new threats, the most recent Markle Report explains And while such change is necessary it must be accomplished while engendering the people's trust that privacy and other civil liberties are being protected that businesses are not being unduly burdened with requests for extraneous or useless information that taxpayer money is being well spent and that ultimately the network will be effective in protecting our security The authors add leadership is emerging from all levels of government in many places in the private sector What is needed now is a plan to accelerate these efforts and public debate and consensus on the goals End of Chapter 13.3 Chapter 13.4 Of all of our recommendations, strengthening congressional oversight may be among the most difficult and important So long as oversight is governed by current congressional rules and resolutions we believe the American people they want and need The United States needs a strong, stable and capable congressional committee structure to give America's national intelligence agencies oversight, support and leadership Few things are more difficult to change in Washington than congressional committee jurisdiction and prerogatives To a member, these assignments are almost as important as the map of his or her congressional district The American people may have to insist that these changes occur Having interviewed numerous members of Congress from both parties as well as congressional staff members we found that dissatisfaction with congressional oversight remains widespread The future challenges of America's intelligence agencies are daunting They include the need to develop leading-edge technologies that give our policymakers and warfighters a decisive edge in any conflict where the interests of the United States are vital Not only does good intelligence win wars but the best intelligence enables us to prevent them from happening altogether Under the terms of existing rules and resolutions the House and Senate intelligence committees lack the power, influence and sustained capability to meet this challenge While few members of Congress have the broad knowledge of intelligence activities or the know-how about the technologies employed all members need to feel assured that good oversight is happening When their unfamiliarity with the subject is combined with the need to preserve security a mandate emerges for substantial change Tinkering with the existing structure is not sufficient Either Congress should create a Joint Committee for Intelligence using the Joint Atomic Energy Committee as its model or it should create House and Senate committees with combined authorizing and appropriations powers Whichever of these two forms are chosen the goal should be a structure codified by resolution with powers expressly granted and carefully limited allowing a relatively small group of members of Congress given time and reason to master the subject and the agencies to conduct oversight of the intelligence establishment and be clearly accountable for their work The staff of this committee should be non-partisan and work for the entire committee and not for individual members The other reforms we have suggested for a National Counterterrorism Center and a National Intelligence Director will not work if congressional oversight does not change too Unity of effort and executive management can be lost if it is fractured by divided congressional oversight Recommendation Congressional oversight for intelligence and counterterrorism is now dysfunctional Congress should address this problem We have considered various alternatives A Joint Committee on the old model of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy is one A single committee in each House of Congress combining authorizing and appropriating authorities is another The new committee, or committees should conduct continuing studies of the activities of the intelligence agencies and report problems relating to the development and use of intelligence to all members of the House and Senate We have already recommended that the total level of funding for intelligence be made public and that the National Intelligence Program be appropriated by the National Intelligence Director not to the Secretary of Defense We also recommend that the Intelligence Committee should have a subcommittee specifically dedicated to oversight freed from the consuming responsibility of working on the budget The resolution creating the new Intelligence Committee structure should grant subpoena authority to the committee or committees The majority party's representation on this committee should never exceed the minority's representation by more than one Four of the members appointed to this committee or committees should be a member who also serves on each of the following additional committees Armed Services Judiciary Affairs Subcommittee In this way, the other major congressional interests can be brought together in the new committee's work Members should serve indefinitely on the Intelligence Committees without set terms thereby letting them accumulate expertise The committee should be smaller perhaps seven or nine members in each House so that each member feels a greater sense of responsibility and accountability for the quality of the committee's work The leaders of the Department of Homeland Security now appear before 88 committees and subcommittees of Congress One expert witness not a member of the administration told us that this is perhaps the single largest obstacle impeding the department's successful development The one attempt to consolidate such committee authority the House Select Committee on Homeland Security may be eliminated The Senate does not even have this Congress needs to establish for the Department of Homeland Security the kind of clear authority and responsibility that exists to enable the Justice Department to deal with crime and the Defense Department to deal with threats to national security Through not more than one authorizing committee and one appropriating subcommittee in each House Congress should be able to ask the Secretary of Homeland Security whether he or she has the resources to provide reasonable security against major terrorist acts within the United States and to hold the Secretary accountable for the department's performance Recommendation Congress should create a single principle point of oversight and review for Homeland Security Congressional leaders are best able to judge what committee should have jurisdiction over this department and its duties, but we believe that Congress does have the obligation to choose one in the House and one in the Senate and that this committee should be a permanent standing committee with a non-partisan staff Improve the transitions between administrations In Chapter 6 we described the transition of 2000 to 2001 Beyond the policy issues we described the new administration did not have its deputy cabinet officers in place until the spring of 2001 and the critical sub-cabinet officials were not confirmed until the summer if then In other words, the new administration, like others before it, did not have its team on the job until at least six months after it took office Recommendation Since a catastrophic attack could occur with little or no notice we should minimize as much as possible the disruption of national security policymaking during the change of administrations by accelerating the process for national security appointments We think the process could be improved significantly so transitions can work more effectively and allow new officials to assume their new responsibilities as quickly as possible Before the election, candidates should submit the names of selected members of their prospective transition teams to the FBI so that, if necessary, those team members can obtain security clearances immediately after the election is over A president-elect should submit lists of possible candidates for national security positions to begin obtaining security clearances immediately after the election so that their background investigations can be complete before January 20th A single federal agency should be responsible for providing and maintaining security clearances ensuring uniform standards including uniform security questionnaires and financial report requirements and maintaining a single database This agency can also be responsible for administering polygraph tests on behalf of organizations that require them A president-elect should submit the nominations of the entire new national security team through the level of undersecretary of cabinet departments not later than January 20th The Senate, in return, should adopt special rules requiring hearings and votes to confirm or reject national security nominees within 30 days of their submission The Senate should not require confirmation of such executive appointees below executive level 3 The outgoing administration should provide the president-elect as soon as possible after election day with the classified compartmented list at catalogs specific operational threats to national security major military or covert operations and pending decisions on the possible use of force Such a document could provide both notice and a checklist inviting a president-elect to inquire and learn more