[Infowarrior] - CounterTerrorism in Shambles

[Richard Forno]

January 7, 2010

Why? CounterTerrorism in Shambles
By RAY McGOVERN and COLEEN ROWLEY

Counterpunch

http://www.counterpunch.org/mcgovern01072010.html

On January 5, a blogger with the PBS’ NewsHour asked former CIA  
analyst Ray McGovern to respond to three questions regarding recent  
events involving the CIA, FBI, and the intelligence community in general

Two other old intelligence hands were asked the identical questions,  
queries that are typical of what radio/TV and blogger interviewers  
usually think to be the right ones.  So there is merit in trying to  
answer them directly, such as they are, and then broadening the  
response to address some of the core problems confronting U.S. counter- 
terror strategies.

After drafting his answers, McGovern asked former FBI attorney/special  
agent Coleen Rowley, a colleague in Veteran Intelligence Professionals  
for Sanity (VIPS) to review his responses and add her own comments at  
the end.  The Q & A is below:

Question #1 – What lapses in the American counter terrorism apparatus  
made the Christmas Day bombing plot possible?  Is it inevitable that  
certain plots will succeed?

The short answer to the second sentence is: Yes, it is inevitable that  
“certain plots will succeed.”  A more helpful answer would address the  
question as to how we might best minimize their prospects for  
success.  And to do this, sorry to say, there is no getting around the  
necessity to address the root causes of terrorism or, in the  
vernacular, “why they hate us.”

If we don’t go beyond self-exculpatory sloganeering in attempting to  
answer that key question, any “counter terrorism apparatus” is doomed  
to failure.  Honest appraisals can tread on delicate territory, but  
any intelligence agency worth its salt must be willing/able to address  
it.

Delicate?  Take, for example, what Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the  
“mastermind” of 9/11, said was his main motive.  Here’s what the 9/11  
Commission Report wrote on page 147.  You will not find it reported in  
the Fawning Corporate Media:

“By his own account, KSM’s animus toward the United States stemmed… 
from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel.”

This is not the entire picture, of course.  Other key factors include  
the post-Gulf War stationing of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, widely  
seen as defiling the holy sites of Islam.  Add Washington’s propping  
up of dictatorial, repressive regimes in order to secure continuing  
access to oil and natural gas—widely (and accurately) seen as one of  
the main reasons for the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.  Not to  
mention the Pentagon’s insatiable thirst for additional permanent  
(sorry, the Pentagon-preferred term is now “enduring”) military bases  
in that part of the world.

The writers of the 9/11 Commission Report made a stab at puncturing  
the myth about “why they hate us” (and actually succeeded in giving  
the lie to familiar bromides like “they” hate us for our democracy,  
our freedoms, our way of life, and so forth).  See, for example, pp  
374-376 of the Commission Report.

But, you may object, I am not answering the first question posed  
above; I am, rather, fighting the problem.

Not true.  I am trying to address the right question…trying to deal  
with causes, not just symptoms and consequences.  The first question,  
as posed, deals in a familiar way with symptoms of the core problem  
but not the core itself, and thus tends to obscure the essence of “why  
they hate us.”

There are over 1.2 BILLION Muslims in the world, many of whom watch  
nightly TV coverage of the violence resulting from U.S. military and  
political support for Israel (including, for example, Washington’s  
acquiescence in the brutal Israeli attacks on civilians in Gaza one  
year ago) and from U.S. actions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen,  
and elsewhere.

And what is the puerile approach taken by not only the politicians but  
also by the clueless amateurs who now lead the intelligence  
community:  No problem, they say.  Technology permits us to build a  
database of one billion names….easy!

Right.  And how to find needles in that haystack.  Easy?  A database  
of “only” 550,000 names did not prevent the Abdulmutallab caper, did it?

Can the prevailing vacuum-up-everything-and-follow-every-lead attitude  
be chalked up to pure adolescent-type inexperience, innocence,  
incompetence?  Not pure—not by a long shot.  One has to ask cui bono?   
Who profits?

It is so painfully obvious.  Here, in microcosm, is an example of what  
Eisenhower warned of when he coined the phrase “military-industrial  
complex.”  Cui bono?  Think the contractors who create marvelous  
databases—and the mindset of: the-more-contractors-and-databases-the- 
merrier.  Think also of snake-oil salesmen like former Justice  
Department and Homeland Security guru Michael Chertoff, who could not  
resist the temptation over the past several days to keep hawking on TV  
the full-body scanners marketed by one of the Chertoff Group’s clients.

2 – Has the new intelligence bureaucracy created after the Sept. 11th  
attacks functioned correctly?  How could it be improved, or was it a  
good idea to create it?

The creation of the post of Director of National Intelligence, the  
National Counterterrorism Center, and the 170,000-person Department of  
Homeland Security was the mother of all misguided panaceas.

Bear in mind that the general election of 2004 was just a few months  
away when the 9/11 report was published, and lawmakers and  
administration functionaries desperately needed to be seen to be doing  
something.  And, as is almost always the case in such circumstances,  
they made things considerably worse.

The 9/11 Commissioners had been fretting over the fact that, in their  
words, “No one was in charge of coordination among intelligence  
agencies.”  That was true, but only because George Tenet much  
preferred to cavort with foreign potentates and thugs, than to do the  
job of Director of Central Intelligence (DCI).

It was not a systemic problem, but one of personal irresponsibility.   
Ignoring that, a new systemic “solution” was sought, and implemented,  
where none was needed.  By law, the Director of Central Intelligence  
was responsible precisely for coordinating the work of the entire  
intelligence community, as the principal intelligence adviser to the  
President (National Security Act of 1947).

This, indeed, was the main reason why Truman created the Central  
Intelligence Agency and not only put the DCI in charge of the CIA but  
also gave the DCI wider—and equally important intelligence community- 
wide responsibilities.

The idea was to prevent another Pearl Harbor, where bits and pieces of  
intelligence lay around with the code-breakers, the Navy, the Army Air  
Corps, the FBI, Embassy Tokyo, the people monitoring Radio Tokyo,  
etc., etc. with no central place where analysts could be in receipt of  
and consider all the evidence.  It was abundantly clear to Truman  
that, had there been such a place in 1941, adequate forewarning of the  
Japanese attack would have been a no-brainer.

As for the situation obtaining in the Washington bureaucracies in  
mid-2004, the following personal vignette, I believe, speaks volumes:   
On July 22, the day the 9/11 Commission Report was issued, BBC TV had  
scheduled me for comment on it, just minutes after its release, at the  
BBC bureau in Washington.  During my ten minutes before the camera I  
focused mostly on the curious fact that no one, no one, not one  
solitary soul was being held accountable!

As I left the TV studio for the outer room, in walked 9/11  
Commissioners Jamie Gorelick and former Senator Slade Gorton (R,  
Washington) to present their own commentary to BBC viewers.  Gorelick  
went right into the studio; I took advantage of being one-on-one with  
Sen. Gorton.

“Sen. Gorton,” I asked, “I don’t quite understand all this talk  
alleging that “No one is in charge of the intelligence community.”   
You are surely aware that, by act of Congress, there is such a person,  
and right now that happens to be Director of Central Intelligence  
George Tenet.”

The avuncular Gorton tiptoed up to me, put his right hand around my  
shoulder, and with a conspiratorial whisper said, “Yes, Ray, Of course  
I know that.  We all know that.  But George would not take charge; he  
would not do what he was supposed to.”

True, this was hardly news to me, but coming from a 9/11  
Commissioner?  I was about to respond with something like, “So you  
need to create another layer, a superstructure over existing  
arrangements, to address that problem?”  But, as it happened, just  
then the BBC studio door opened, Gorelick emerged, and Horton went  
in.  Gorelick was too busy to answer the question I had posed to Horton.

The new Director of National Intelligence?  This position, created by  
the post -9/11 “reforms,” was/is totally unnecessary—and  
counterproductive.  This was entirely predictable.  As my former CIA  
colleague Mel Goodman has written, the DNI superstructure has actually  
been very destructive of good intelligence….in more ways than I have  
space to go into here.

The fact that no National Intelligence Estimate has been completed on  
Afghanistan and Pakistan, for example, is, at this stage,  
unconscionable.  Were Generals David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal  
able to head off an NIE, lest its conclusions brand their plans for  
Afghanistan the “march of folly” that it is?

Ever since President Truman set up the CIA, the preparation of a  
National Intelligence Estimate has been de rigueur before important  
the President would make important decisions on foreign, and  
particularly military, policies.  Was the new layer-laden intelligence  
bureaucracy unable to get its act together in time to give this  
customary support to the President?

The National Counterterrorism Center?  Also unnecessary; a benighted  
idea.  The recent attempt by Mr. Abdulmutallab to bring down a Detroit- 
bound Northwest Airlines flight speaks volumes about the NCTC’s  
effectiveness and the kind of leadership exercised by John Brennan—a  
clone of George Tenet.

We are told that Brennan is supposed to coordinate things at the  
National Security Council...or is Director of National Intelligence  
Admiral Blair supposed to do that?….or Panetta? ...or Janet  
Napolitano, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security? ...or  
maybe the FBI?………  Ugh.

Can you tolerate still more?  This just in.  President Barack Obama  
announced Tuesday that he has appointed John Brennan to lead a  
“thorough investigation” into how the people under his general aegis  
screwed up regarding the Abdulmutallab affair.  I do not often quote  
Ollie North, but “Hey, is this a great country, or what!”

As for the Department of Homeland Security…just look if at what has  
happened to the Secret Service and to the Transportation Security  
Administration—not to mention FEMA and Katrina.

3 – What one reform would you recommend that might improve information  
sharing among agencies working to prevent terrorist attacks?

Hold accountable those responsible.

More “reform” is the last thing we need.  And, sorry, but we DO have  
to look back.

The most effective step would be to release the CIA Inspector General  
report on intelligence community performance prior to 9/11.  That  
investigation was run, and its report was prepared, by an honest  
Inspector General, it turns out.  (Interestingly, he retired almost a  
year ago and has not been replaced.)

Actually, the Inspector General report fixed blame and named names.   
So it was immediately suppressed by one of those named, then-Acting  
DCI John McLaughlin—another Tenet-clone.  McLaughin’s successors as  
Director, Porter Goss, Michael Hayden, and now Leon Panetta followed  
suit.

Accountability is key.  If there is no accountability, there is total  
freedom to screw up, and screw up royally, without any thought of  
possible personal consequences.

Not only is it certain that we will face more terrorist attacks, but  
the keystone-cops nature of recent intelligence operations …. whether  
in using cell phones in planning kidnappings in Italy, or in allowing  
suicide bombers to penetrate CIA bases in Taliban-infested eastern  
Afghanistan….will continue.  Not to mention the screw-up in the case  
of Abdulmutallab.

Sadly, instead of accountability, there is likely to be misguided—and  
counterproductive—vengeance.  After all, the word in Langley is “seven  
of ours” have now been killed.  Anonymous intelligence officials are  
already warning openly about payback!

Wasn’t that the base human instinct, the same revenge factor that was  
played on so deftly by President George W. Bush and Vice President  
Dick Cheney to “justify” invading Afghanistan—and then Iraq—right  
after 9/11?

 From Coleen Rowley:

Launching PR “wars” on terrorism, drugs, crime, poverty, etc. misleads  
the average person into believing that these ills can be totally  
conquered or eliminated.  In reality, even if the experts were so  
enlightened/lucky as to make no mistakes and do everything right, it’s  
only possible to reduce the frequency of such adverse things.

It is possible to make terrorist plots less likely to succeed, but it  
is not possible to prevent them all.

It is much harder for counter-terrorist experts to prevent terrorist  
plots when, under the law of unintended consequences, U.S. foreign  
policy contributes to a marked increase in the number of potential  
terrorists—as it undoubtedly has. The level of terrorism in the world  
has increased dramatically since 9-11.  So a starting place would be  
to find out where we are now, as compared to 2001, and to evaluate  
whether U.S. policies might—just possibly might—account for most of  
the increase.

The unrealistic expectation of “winning” a “war” against terrorism— 
that is, preventing all terrorist acts—merely opens the door to crazy  
“destroy-the-village-to-save-it” kinds of actions that result in  
squaring the error.   Such actions radicalize greater and greater  
numbers of people and create still more “terrorists.”

Fear-based expectations also open the door to:

(1) Reckless “pre-emptive” actions based on mere guesswork, hunches,  
or prior agendas;

(2) A penchant for fusing agencies, creating multi-agency “centers,”  
and re-naming bureaucracies—all without much thought to finding out  
what went awry, who was responsible, holding people accountable, and  
fixing problems; and

(3) A surge in the fast growing “Surveillance-Security Complex,” a  
highly lucrative business now rivaling the Military Industrial Complex  
itself.

“Total Information Awareness”-type programs are a sales gimmick that  
brings dividends only to the contractor-creators.  Projects involving  
billions of pieces of private communications and other data that are  
vacuumed up and put into newly created, massive databases of  
individuals are a fool’s errand.  No matter how sophisticated or  
exotic, they are not likely to succeed in helping find needles in  
haystacks that are constantly being fed more hay.  Not this decade,  
anyway.

Keystone Cops and Barney Fife responses are not funny in real life.   
One only laughs at such travesty for psychological release.  The  
reality is that, in real life, these truly counter-productive responses 
—creatures of arrogance, ignorance, and excessive fear—are no laughing  
matter.

No meaningful fixes are possible without accountability for mistakes  
or wrongdoing.

Equally important, those witnessing innocent mistakes and worse  
problems must be able to avail themselves of some kind of job  
protection, should they summon enough courage to blow the whistle.   
Sadly, no “whistleblower protection” now exists.

Thus there is no antidote to the secrecy and job-jeopardy regularly  
invoked to muzzle employees who witness fraud, waste, abuse, and  
illegal acts.  In recent years these have included heinous behavior  
like torture, kidnapping, and illegal eavesdropping, as well as untold  
amounts of misfeasance and other malfeasance that create serious  
threats and risks to public safety.

Ray McGovern and Coleen Rowley are members of the Steering Group of  
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

Rowley, a FBI special agent for almost 24 years, was legal counsel to  
the FBI Field Office in Minneapolis from 1990 to 2003.  She came to  
national attention in June 2002, when she testified before Congress  
about serious lapses before 9/11 that helped account for the failure  
to prevent the attacks.  She now writes and speaks on ethical decision- 
making and on balancing civil liberties with the need for effective  
investigation.

McGovern was an Army officer and CIA analyst for almost 30 year. He  
now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals  
for Sanity. He is a contributor to Imperial Crusades: Iraq,  
Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey  
St. Clair (Verso). He can be reached at: rrmcgovern at aol.com

A shorter version of this article appeared at Consortiumnews.com.