The Benefit Of Hindsight

May 20 — If only the Bush administration had heeded a 1999 Library of Congress report on The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism, the latest terrorist strike against the United States need never have happened. In that report, experts commissioned by the National Intelligence Council outlined “New Forms of Terrorist-Threat Scenarios.” From that discussion and clues in other government reports, the FBI, the CIA, and the White House could have pieced together and averted the deadly plot that has since unfolded.

THE PLOT to which I’m referring, of course, is last week’s suicide bombing of an U.S. Navy destroyer docked in Baltimore, which claimed the lives of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and more than 100 sailors. This despicable deed, perpetrated by Tamil guerrillas using a small submarine packed with explosives, was telegraphed years in advance. It should have been obvious to anyone who read the 1999 NIC report and other intelligence-related documents freely available on the Internet.

The NIC report advised policymakers, “The world leaders in terrorist suicide attacks are not the Islamic fundamentalists, but the Tamils of Sri Lanka.” The report warned that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE, was “the only terrorist group to have assassinated three heads of government” and that it posed a threat to the United States.

The administration’s professed surprise at the use of a submarine to execute the attack rings hollow. As the NIC report noted, the LTTE had blown up “at least one naval battleship.” A Winter 1999 report by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, citing a Sri Lankan intelligence source, added that LTTE members had “allegedly received glider, micro-light and speedboat training … for future ‘kamikaze’ strikes.” In April 2001, an analysis of Patterns of Global Terrorism by the U.S. State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism referred to the discovery of “a partially completed submersible at a shipyard in Phuket, Thailand, owned by an LTTE-sympathizer.”

The use of an all-female crew to gain easier entry to the United States likewise should have been anticipated. As the 1999 report noted, the LTTE has a “limitless supply of female suicide commandos.” Nor should the crew’s entry through Canada have caught the government unaware. The LTTE’s use of Canada as a “portal to the United States” was cited three years ago by Michael Pearson, an official of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, in testimony before a House subcommittee. As for the cyber-attack that disrupted U.S. military communications just before the bombing, FBI Director Louis Freeh warned senators a year ago that Tamil terrorists had already “engaged in attacks on foreign government Web-sites and e-mail servers.”

There’s only one good reason to excuse the administration for failing to anticipate this terrorist strike: It never happened. And yet every quotation attributed to the reports cited above is accurate. So is the entire first paragraph of this story. The NIC report did project new “Terrorist-Threat Scenarios.” In addition to the LTTE, it named another dangerous terrorist organization, al-Qaida, and suggested methods by which that organization might strike the United States. Other government reports hinted at the same culprit and the same methods. The difference is that one scenario happened, and the other didn’t.

In retrospect, it seems obvious to many people that the FBI, the CIA, and the White House should have “connected the dots” and anticipated al-Qaida’s use of hijacked planes to hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But everything seems more obvious in retrospect, because you know which things are true and which aren’t. What makes hindsight so easy is that you know not just what you needed to worry about, but what you didn’t need to worry about. Identifying threats and mobilizing to prevent them isn’t as easy as finding a single pattern. Intelligence is full of patterns involving numerous groups, targets, and methods.

If you’re the president of the United States or one of his intelligence advisers, you have to decide which threats are most worth investigating, mobilizing for, or disrupting people’s everyday lives.

It’s easy, after the fact, for reporters and political opponents to go back and dig up reports that hinted at what eventually happened. They don’t have to sort through the false leads and unfulfilled scenarios. They know how the story ends.

ABOUT TIME somebody from the "Mainstream" of opinion said something intelligent !

If you can put up with an old fart telling "war stories" for a minute or two, I believe I can show you all the warnings in the world would have made no difference !

In the early 70's, I was involved with a private security agency ( which I'll call SPWGDA - Self-Proclaimed World's Greatest Detective Agency ), which had been approached to bid on an airline security contract at a major NYC area airport. To this end, we met with the Airport Security Director ( a high-level former NYC cop ),Airport Management, and somebody from the FAA.

Certain things were obvious from the git-go : Airport Mgt. wanted no part of additional security, but was being forced to set up a program by the FAA.The Airport Managers felt it was a gross imposition to have to pay for a program that would require them to invest money in equipment, and that might slow down the orderly flow of passengers ( and contraband ) through the airport.

( Yes, Virginia: drugs were being smuggled almost openly, laundered money was flowing smoothly to its intended beneficiaries, and Mob Wannabees were dipping their greedy little beaks into the Air Freight and Baggage, and had a good lock on the airport unions. Airport Management was well aware of the problems, but more than willing to overlook them for the sake of labor peace...and a small percentage of the action. )

The Airport Security Manager was sort of in the middle : he had to do something to keep the FAA happy, but, if he wanted to keep receiving those big paychecks, and profit sharing bonusses, he had to keep Airport Management a hell of a lot happier.

The "Security Plan" drawn up had all the bells and whistles the FAA needed, but was almost totally cosmetic. I remember we all looked at one another, sort of shrugged, and started to work up manpower costs. Knowing the sort of troops I had to work with, I was enormously relieved when another Security agency put in a lower bid !

The agency that won the bid lost it in less than a year, when somebody came in with a lower bid; and it was obvious the Guards were strictly minimum wage-and under-supervised to boot... but that's what the Airlines really wanted: warm bodies to go through the motions; the primary function of their Supervisors being to make sure they kept the passenger lines moving !

That's essentially the type of "security" the Airlines had on 9/11/01; and the proof of that statement is the hideously bad quality of security after 9/11.

People are still managing to board airplanes with weapons...though fingernail clippers and eye tweezers and Congressional Medals of Honor are being intercepted.When people are stopped, it's usually because they somehow annoyed or confused the Screeners: most of whom are still inept Rent-a-Cops. Has there been even one week since 9/11 in which planes were not evacuated, and people forced to undergo re-screening...because some Screener was earning a little pin-money by turning the machines off ?

Given the quality of Airline Security available,Bin Laden and his Merry Men could have sent promotional flyers, describing in excruciating detail what they planned to do,and when-with zero change in the outcome.

And, by the way, Hillary: in case you were wondering : I knew this a long time ago,and you did too.

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