Documenti di Didattica
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Need an information effort that exceeds what we did against the Soviet Union
Real drain the swamp initiatives, world-wide program, revamping CA for influence
programs, language hard priorities
Battle of ideas, we are fighting an ideology in which religion plays a big part. We need
to address it the way we took on the communist ideology. We need a full counterweight,
and we should not shy from identifying it as a deviant strain a great religion. Battle of
ideas
Pre 98 disruption liaison, LE, disruption of sanctuary was principal change post 9/11,
how are we bolstering countries as we did in Cold War?
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Military Operations in Afghanistan Case Study
Going after Mullah Omar. The risks involved. The losses incurred. How hard this is.
Difficulty of mounting an operation.
The lethal nature of the threat. Who was watching this? Were they convinced that it was
lethal and required taking risks and leaving a big footprint.
Did they know how dangerous this was, and why not?
Predator Case Study
Magic solution
No one would get hurt except the bad guys. Low and acceptable cost
Use technology as our answer
We rely on hi-tech, enemies rely on low-tech
This reflects just how much no one wanted to go to war
Predator Case Study
Typical American response, solution to a problem: throw technology at it, kill one guy.
Was the answer for CIA and for DoD. Meant none of the good guys would get killed or
injured. American answer, apply technology, solve the messy problem of terrorism with
a magic bullet.
Started out as an intelligence collection platform, then became weaponized, was going to
solve the problem
Big pissing contest b/w DoD and CIA as to who would pay. But, more importantly, who
would have responsibility to pull the trigger, and make a mistake.
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Pentagon: PLANORDS & EXORDS
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10-15 pages of analysis
Calls on capabilities. We had them, but military is not so strong on this. Lay outside
their comfort zone.
Committed group of people within each agency trying to shake them out of a mindset.
The orders never came from President Clinton, or President Bush. It didn't happen on his
watch. Was not seized with the issue. Never spoke to his top expert on it.
Institutional change. Could it have come without 9/11. Perhaps not. Did not come from
President Bush. Less a chance and less time. Was it a priority? There is some evidence?
Was the level of engagement as high?
Needed radical institutional change. When does that come? A radical and new enemy.
Taken seriously, did not have divisions or air force or navy or easily targetable assets. A
hard problem
Outline of the final report
Mongraphs: maximum reference value, concise tight standard, no long block quotes
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Clarke has his own cell w/i the USG.
Same problems within CIA that you had in the policy community
DCI and other Principals, you've got a problem that cut across the lines
Lots of options, though the first time CIA has control and can plan for lethal action.
Govt had designed a way to respond, a new threat, but only used more $, some
instruments used, but military not fully integrated or included
This big threat required military action, to slam into the places where it was, and act on
intelligence
Willingness to risk lives, all our methods were stand off, TLAMs, proxies, renditions
other liaison services, behind the scenes. There were reasons for this. But we were not
ready to jump in. No mood in Congress. Renditions, liaison, not direct, kinetic action.
What was the difference in the threat between September 10 and September 12? What
was the difference in capabilities?
Here's what success is. Here's where we're falling short, here's how we're going to get
there
Measures/milestones
Beofe 9/11: needed an Afghan strategy, not just a CT strategy; before 9/11 needed a
Pakistan strategy not just a CT strategy
Small Group, restricted group. Ask Clarke about this. So that we have our terms right.
What were these called. Principals Small Group.
'99 Millenium plots, wide ranging many countries, U.S. homeland, reach us here
Dick Clarke's shop carried over a level of knowledge, it was the constant.
Pre-9/11, what strategy was in place? How far short was it?
Safehavens. How do we deny them? What are we trying to do? What is one? When
will we know we have been successful?
Why couldn't we have seized territory in Afghanistan and ripped up the al Qaeda camps,
gone after al Qaeda, taken the fight to them.
It wasn't the military's war. It wasn't their war overseas militarily or internationally, or
domestically.
Leadership was engaged. It was an issue for him. But the forceful push, with follow-
through was lacking.
John Poindexter: the only person who lost his job as a result of 9/11, and that's only
because he got himself cross-ways on privacy issues. Contractor in the cellar of the
Pentagon. He was in DARPA.
Doomczar: You mean CIA had to develop its own capability because NSA wouldn't
share information? Slow to see that the extreme secrecy of the U.S. government was less
urgent than the exigency of responding to UBL.
Freeh was at the top of the list of officials who didn't get it
Clarke was the longest serving and best analyst and policy maker
Why was there no institutional change? The millennium provided good and sufficient
reason to do something other than just handling via surge
Did you change the institutions; no one changed the institutions fundamentally
CIA knew supplemental were coming. They planned on supplemental. But you are not
supposed to know about them. They are supposed to fall from the sky.
Problem is after the millennium plots, why not a sustained 5-10 year plan post
millennium
Sandy doing Small Group meetings, pre-millennium, everyone's response was a surge,
not a major institutional change
CIA handled it like a short term, budgets only problem
They argued it would destroy the DO if you changed the base, but only the DO as they
knew it.
Need to not just side with the people who were fighting the war on terror.
Tendency to say that because no one else got it, what were they doing?
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Predator Case Study
Policy side - was this meeting the definition of Covert Action. Using Predator could
only have been the U.S. Not hiding our hand. Same with Stinger program for
Afghanistan
Monograph Quotations for Section Headings
"If you didn't like 9/11, you're not going to like your future.'
Did the Taliban commit an act of war against the U.S. by connection to a-Q who
attacked our embassies and later the USS Cole?
Did we take these actions with a sense of impunity? Did we go to defcon three?
Not as an act of war because it wasn't a country that attacked our embassies, they
weren't British redcoat regulars.
We are at war with terrorism our governments and countries that harbor terrorism
post 9/11.
Magnitude of deaths. Did that change it? These non-state actors just did more
damage.
Their relation with the Taliban had not changed any. Neither closer nor further.
Formula for Addressing Deadly Issues
President
As
Ringmaster
Traditional deterrence can affect states, great powers, and wmd state actors
9/11 has institutionalized a response but there is no guarantee that it will be effective
Read it
Clear from NSC and EOF documents that Clarke was driving process in the new Bush
Administration, not Condi Rice or Steve Hadley.
Highest levels of government were not engaged, were not driving the process
It's possible to see from the style Dick Clarke wrote his Memos that he was attempting to
influence the new Administration. Frequently, he would use lead-in's such as: The
previous Administration attempted this but failed
But, of course, he was part of the previous Administration. Did he need to do this to gain
influence? Is it further indication that the higher levels were not engaged?
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Counterfactuals and other Essays:
• Weaponized Predator: When is the soonest it could have flown in summer 2001?
And what's the best outcome if it had? Could we have averted 9/11?
• If Richard Clarke had been given everything he asked for by summer of 2001 (or
insert other dates) does 9/11 happen?
• "License to Kill", the Kill vs. Capture issue: What impact did this controversy
have on dealing effectively with UBL? If it had been clear, could we have
averted 9/11?
• The Hunt for UBL: The difficulty post-9/11 suggests the difficulty of finding him
before before 9/11 in the Afghanistan sanctuary, at least after the August 1998
U.S. retaliation.
• The cost of addressing the threat through surges rather than institutional change.
• Result vs. Intent: Before 9/11, al Qaeda had killed only a comparatively small
number of Americans. But given UBL's declared aims (see his 1998 fatwa), the
fact that over the course of several attacks it was clear that al Qaeda had intended
to kill many more than the actual number of fatalities were produced, and the
steady stream of reporting concerning al Qaeda's interest in acquiring WMD,
should that have produced a stronger pre-9/11 policy reaction? In other words,
did our own successes in foiling attacks (the Millennium, for example) cause us to
underestimate the threat and fail to respond with sufficient vigor?
• UBL was at war with us. Were we at war with him? What would that have
meant? Was it possible to be at war with him? How many deaths would it have
taken before 9/11 to make possible the kind of decisive response the USG made
after 9/11? What does it take to get government to change gears?
• The trade-offs in the Global War on terrorism: e.g., to get Russian help have we
had to give Moscow a blank check on Chechnya?
From 1998 on, CIA functioned as the military, defending the country.
What were the most important options, dates, windows for the use of force.
Window of opportunity?
Do a time line
Warren?
For the Pentagon, 1996 and Khobar Towers was a more decisive date than the Embassy
bombings in 1998
Tell Bonnie that with DoD we need to go back to Khobar towers and we should ask for
that, Pat Downs, on the theory that that sets the stage for the military
How do you keep bureaucracies from retrenching back to the old ways and patterns of
doing things?
Clinton Admnistration can shape opinion on Kosovo and Bosnia but not on Afghanistan
Balkans needed our leadership, Europeans could not do it alone. Bosnia, Kosovo more
directly affected their interests
Europe did not care as much about aQ, because aQ not really killing them
Need to look at the quality of cooperation with the Saudis, with Saudi Arabia now
What if Clinton administration worked as hard on aQ as it had on Bosnia and Kosovo and
getting that story right
Not at war with them. They were at war with us. Ragtag group of shitheads
No one anticipated (well a few like Clarke, Black, Blee) what these people would do, or
their single-minded determination, or that it would adapt to events and change to be more
lethal
Was there a Grand Strategy or not? Did it incorporate a domestic strategy? And a
"draining the swamp" strategy?
Homeland security?
Do we need a blueprint?
Director of Operations
Saudi Arabia relationships with Muslim terrorist groups or Saudi cooperation or lack of it
in the war against terrorism
The 9/11 report has given Americans a window into the failures of their government in
responding adequately to the threat of al Qa'ida. The public should also have the
opportunity to hear about—and from—foreign governments, even putative allies, that
may have erred as well.
The broader questions are whether the kingdom is still supporting extremist schools and
preachers in other countries, and whether it is doing enough to make sure al-Qa'ida is not
the beneficiary of its charities. Since the bombing in Riyadh this year, the Saudi
government has emphasized its break with past practices, and its movement has been
encouraging. But that fact does not wipe the slate clean.
For a new kind of enemy, one not tied to land, or protecting a sovereign state?
Do we need an outline?
Separate pieces?
9 or 10 monographs
Written/sourced answers
January 1, 1998-2001
Will Commission be in a position to recommend awards for some people? Should we?
Commendations?
9/11 was a history changing event. Because of its magnitude, accountability should be
found at the top; did they take strong enough action? That's where fault is, with those
entrusted to act and to protect the public.
If nobody made any mistakes there wouldn't be a big smoking hole in lower Manhattan.
There were a small number of obsessed people in government who were unfashionable in
their opinions and their exigency. Caused AQ fatigue?
CIA
Need to look closely at MONs and look at the debate over sufficient authorities
Did the findings say that they had to attempt to capture bin Ladin first?
(recommendation: do these controls make sense now? Do we have to quibble about this
now? An enemy who will commit mass murder. Can we not have robust response. Do
we want to be involved in these niceties? Streamlined review of lethal action/authority?
NSC
Position is that they asked CIA and CIA responded that it had sufficient authorities and
sufficient funding.
Who was speaking for CIA? Director? Lawyers? CTC?
Military
In spring and summer of 2001 the meetings of Principals and Deputies not greater than
on other topics.
Did we fail?
Was is the scale and place of the attack? On U.S. soil? 3,000 killed
Were we conditioned by the way we had responded to terrorism since the early 70's?
Was there strategic warning? If so, did the strategic warning resonate. If not, why not?
Why didn't they just give the orders to wipe out AQ in Afghanistan. That was the issue.
What would trigger an invasion of Afghanistan?
The families: at some level they are never going to be satisfied. They want what
happened not to have happened. They want their loved ones back.
Tell the story the way the story is. Tell the story, that's all we can do. And ask the
questions.
We knew AQ was audacious. But it was audacious overseas. Not on U.S. soil. Attacks
on U.S. Embassies and on a Navy vessel killing 17 did not amount to much.
Was it the fact that only 12 Americans were killed? The rest were foreigners? Was the
response to East Africa Embassy bombings sufficient? What would trigger a military
response?
Who laid out the redline? The line in the sand? What was it? Where was it?
Somewhere between 17 sailors and 3000 citizens on U.S. soil.
Who really was asserting we must go in there and wipe them out, now.
After 9-11 the bar was set much lower. The bar that you had to clear.
Before 9-11 the bar was higher? Why? Should it have been lower before 9-11. We were
still using traditional instruments
What would have prevented it? Too much hindsight? Too complicated.
Focused overseas.
Maybe 9-11 would have still gone forward, hard to say, from Hamburg cell.
Very little imagination or out of the box thinking at the policy level. And not much risk
taking in any of this, except from CIA. At lower levels people were doing their jobs.
Not at higher levels.
What would it have taken. They had the JSOC options. Was there a decision on part of
policy makers or military command that sending these guys in would have resulted in
unacceptable casualties? Where did these decisions come from. Long and deep roots
about how these views were conditioned.
What would have triggered a response? An order from the President and policy makers.
At some level the President has to act. This is history changing stuff, why didn't they
act?
They still were using traditional instruments to wage battle against counterterrorism,
against a limited enemy with limited goals.
This was a new enemy. Not satisfied with regional/local aims, but lashing out at our
democracy and our way of life. Traditional instruments INSUFFICIENT. And yet our
thinking appeared to be limited to them.
To consider
What resources were devoted to learning more about the threat at the time.
Did the military have a plan. Since 1993 they were told to have a plan. Was it a good
one? Was it on the shelf? Was it adequate or just pro forma response?
Germany: What was going on there? What did CIA know? When did they know it?
When did Mohammad Atta first come on the scope? Were the Germans covering him
and the group? What info was CIA getting? What did they do about it?
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Issue: National Command Options
Who decided that the lead should not be the military's; Earlier CT policy? What was it?
There were other things that were urgent that captured the Bush Administration's
attention
Did the military come up with good options, or didn't it? If not, why not?
Did the U.S. have to be struck at home in order to get the full range of responses?
Did policy makers order the military to make the right preparations?
Wrong to say they had strategic warning. In hindsight, yes. At the time, no.
Urgent?
If they had been persuaded we might not have a big smoking hole in lower Manhattan
They weren't convinced it was a major strategic threat. They believed the blow was
coming overseas.
North Korea and Iraq were more important to the military and to others
Our job: Tell the history. What happened? How do we deal with it now?
Absence of attacks?
Lessons learned
An unprecedented opportunity
Cumbersome
Sense of urgency
Did we require a catastrophic event on our territory to get the country to respond?
Non-state actors?
When
Understand it
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We thought we could contain UBL, that there would be some overseas attacks but that we
could absorb these
Disruptions
Renditions
That we could go along and do this for awhile
We did not perceive just how much of a threat we were in, and did not translate this into
action?
We thought we could contain him and put a fence around him and figure out ways to deal
with him
What was the Bush administration strategy for dealing with UBL?
They didn't have one; Clarke was just "maintaining", we were on cruise control
Foreseeability: "tort doctrine", what standard? A high standard for those entrusted with
national leadership. Apply legal doctrines
Robert Samuelson: "if the Times were serious about self-examination, it would have
assigned the task to outsiders. It is hard for insiders to be too critical of their organization
for both psychological reasons (their assumptions may be part of the problem) and
economic self-interest (they may censor themselves to protect their job and to not impede
advancement)
Candid appraisals
Pentagon
What you couldn't get past, or get done
Tenet's declaration of war, but doesn't shift policy process
What was his sense of dealing with Pentagon?
FBI: useless and obstructionist
Leadership — the truth is somewhat more activism on specific things-but the nsc was
insulated, no one was saying let's put boots on the ground, it didn't happen
12
At levels higher than Clark?
How hard was Cohen pressing for greater activism?
Shelton?
Was the military just not going to do anything unless ordered otherwise?
Military: had the capability, not he will, or the interest, didn't' see terrorism or aQ as
their problem
13
Even after the Cole?
CIA: had will and interest and knowledge but not tactical information, and not capability
Predator was an instrument
They wouldn't share it and wouldn't fix it
Different culture
Something new that can overcome this, still don't want to play
DCI's declaration of war: but, if we're at war, some people will die? It is the highest
priority. Was it the highest priority?
What about the administration? It wasn't really at war. Was CIA the only executive
agency at war?
What dci was doing in spring and summer of 2001 was alarmism, keep the system up and
on red alert.
What happens when this is going on. Are people on a higher state of alert?
What about F AA? Was it on a higher state of alert? Was word getting out to it? Why
not?
DDCI should have been driving this, or DI—who is responsible for managing analytical
resources of the U.S. government
John Gannon:
14
No one accountable for domestic threat 2 years after the attack
After 9/11 there was a perceived presidential commitment
Administration decided to stay with its same team
But need an objective assessment of what changes are needed
Enterprise management experience
People are too vested in the policies
Non-accountable, defensive role
Admin made decision to let them fix themselves
No accountability in this decision
Major achievement, support of president, drive it through chief executive
Structural change required?
CIA is privileged, has sole access to president, cuts everyone else out
Warning something is going to happen, going to happen here, going to happen now
CIA: When the political will caught up with what they were doing, which unfortunately
took September 11, then they were in a position to take quick action, because of all the
legwork they had done. The plan worked marvelously, ousting the Taliban from
Afghanistan within months. The CIA director became a valuable asset to Bush. Tenet
now briefed the president daily at 8 a.m. He had gained greater access to the White
House than any director since Ronald Reagan's, William Casey
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What was Congress doing?
Kevin Shaeffer's Point:
Don't just focus on the event. The threat was there. False to say it took 9/11 to make this
happen, to get bureaucracies really focused on this.
After 1998 we knew they were a strategic threat, many supposed they would use wmd if
they had it, by summer 2001 some thought attack would come in U.S.
Can't say we weren't warned, can't say that couldn't have used force, and deployed
troops to take them out.
ALREADY WE WERE OVER THE LINE. THE LINE HAD BEEN CROSSED
By '98 there was ample strategic warning awareness. Should this have risen to priority
number 1
As of August '98 there was awareness of a threat that could go all the way up to '98
Did earlier DOJ prosecutions and the fact we treated terrorism as a law enforcement
problem color our views: Blind Sheikh, 1st World Trade Center bombing in 1993—a-Q
looked like the gang who couldn't shoot straight
No excuse for not devising a serious strategy to counter the range of threat
Strategy assumed too much time, that there was time to do this, higher levels did not have
the same sense of urgency
Appreciated the strategy but didn't take the next step within a timely fashion
Tenet and Clark beating the drum but they were from the previous administration
Point of intersection
Leadership issue
Mindset issue
Go back to fundamentals
NSC has gotten away from that which will kill us.
A mini-NSC - that which will really kill us, so that it doesn't get mixed in with other
things.
Focus on econ and all these issues, not as critical, preserving the safety, protecting our
people is the most important thing, national security has become a catchall, too broad,
maybe we need a tighter group
1998-2001: did system effectively identify aQ as a threat? Yes or No? Did policy
makers appreciate the threat? Implementation of the policy?
If Bush has had 6 more months and nothing happened? Would they have done anything?
Would they have been out in front more? Working on the new MON because of this
Niagara of threat in spring and summer of 2001
How did system respond to millennium threat? Why were we still playing defensive?
Could we have had a policy in effect that would have prevented this?
We have gotten away from that which can kill us: Bosnia, Kosovo, even Iraq. So, that
which could kill us was not a higher priority. Put it on a special track: WMD; terrorism
Even if the FBI had been more aggressive and done things right, it's still playing
defensive.
Chem/bio
A big problem
We were asleep
Responding from crisis to crisis.
Guidance
Warning; beating the drum; critical mass of intelligence; standard is a reasonable national
security official's level of critical mass should be sufficient
Stamping it out
Strategy
After 1998 they just improved embassy security, we did not address the underlying
causes
Employing every capability at the earliest stage, when threat has been identified
De-centralizing
Systematically lock in and enable the good things that have been done to continue
Immediate threat that can kill us. Groups of people at our door
What happened didn't push the threat to the top of the list
What clear guidance came from the President. Who set the agenda. It wasn't clear. No
orders
Character of Strategic warning that we have on aQ changes in '98, FDD 62, UBL fatwas,
9/11 plot hatched
Nations are a threat to us, not because of their power, but because of their weakness
(Afghanistan)
Non-State actors
Lessons Learned
No follow-through
Not enough people, or not people of sufficient weight challenging conventional wisdom
We knew they would attack inside the U.S. but were not prepared. Did not know where
or when
Why didn't we get them before 9/11? Who were they? Would we have gotten them?
Or of policy?
Or of leadership?
A hearing aid?
Bureaucratic problems
And that it would take many deaths to cause us to change and realize how much danger
we were in
Team 3 Key Questions
Do we need to do an outline
What was the response of the U.S. Government to the threat of Al-Qa'ida?
How during the period from January 1, 1998 - September 11, 2001 did the system
change to deal with the threat?
This was a critical period. Did the instruments change? Yes? No? If not, why not?
Given what they knew at the time, should they have taken greater measures?
What would have been the impetus for such changes? Intelligence? Analysis?
Did the 1998 Embassy bombings raise covert action to a new level?
What effect did the length of time it took to get Bush Team deputies into office have on
decision making?
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Did the Pentagon accept the mission of defending the U.S.? What infrastructure? What
bases? Did Rumsfeld have to invent this in Fall 2001? Hard questions.
Did the military ramp up in the 80's? Had these measures fallen off by the mid-90's?
What was the template for Somalia? After WTC bombing in 1993? After Khobar in
1996? After East Africa Embassy bombings in 1998? After bombing of USS Cole in
2000?
Was it the number one priority of the Clinton gov't? Of the Bush gov't? If not, why not?
Post-9-11 the situation/response changed dramatically. Why not before? Should it have?
What were Dick Clark, Sandy, GT, Bill Cohen, Rumsfeld, Madeleine, Shelton, Myers
going to try to avert this
Were the means devoted equal to the threat? At what times. Did the government move
fast enough? With appropriate sense of urgency?
Team 3 Questions
• To what extent does a CinC have the responsibility to be taking steps, basing, etc.,
in the absence of explicit instructions from SecDef or the Chairman.
Could/Should Franks have been making arrangements to be prepared to attack
AQ along a range of options when the orders came. What was happening
between August 1998 and September 11 2003?
• The issue is not that the military didn't act robustly; we know that. That is not
news. That story has been told. But the rationale for why no robust action was
taken, and why there were no serious preparations has not been fully articulated.
That is where the story is: Vietnam Syndrome; Somalia; Desert One;
Commanders couldn't lose men, if they did their careers were over. Rumsfeld
and the Powell Doctrine; exchanged between then Ambassador to the UN
Madeleine Albright and Chairman Powell over Bosnia: "What good is an army if
we never use them?"
• What about the military's relations with President Clinton? Was that a factor?
• How would you go about fixing the problem of how long it takes to get a
government into power after an election? Were we vulnerable?
• And what about after the Cole? Why wasn't this at the top of the Presidential
agenda following January 20, 2003?
• JSOC was ready to go. They are always ready to go. That is their job. Higher
command was holding them back?
Why not covert or clandestine unilateral military operations in Aghanistan pre-9/11, what
we're doing now?
What were the capabilities of CIA's military force. The strategy was based on the use of
regional proxies. There was doubt in the community at the strategy level and growing
frustration. Failure at the political level to do this. Failure at the DoD level to do the
planning and to be forward leaning.
Policy makers, did they give you all the authority you needed?
Are you satisfied with the legal authority to carry out what you want? Kill him? Write it
down, give us the authority to kill him, if you want him dead?
In considering this a catastrophic event like 9/11, any American leader would have acted
decisively, but it was the wrong analysis
The risk was not just putting boots on the ground, the risk was it would take time to do
this through proxies, and might not succeed, we did not have an offensive strategy with
all of our capability
What did you think about the timing and the urgency?
To do that things need to come together. At the Deputies and above level
"If we are indeed in a war, shouldn't the Generals
be on the battlefield instead of sitting in a spot
removed from the action while still attempting to
call the shots?"
Colleen Rowley
FBI Special Agent
Minneapolis Field Office
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Special Issues
• John Poindexter: the only person who lost his job as a result of 9/11, and
that's only because he got himself cross-ways on privacy issues. He was in
DARPA.
• DOOMCZAR:
o You mean CIA had to develop its own capability because NSA
wouldn't share information?
o Slow to see that the extreme secrecy of the U.S. government was less
urgent than the exigency of responding to UBL.
What was the threat?
A shadowy network
Intel on WMD
At a time when you needed the military fully engaged we did not have it
Problems within CIA, because even though it would not have been enough, still wasn't
getting all the internal support it needed.
They were trying to say there was not a policy or strategy was insufficient
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Had to be at the Deputies level, because there was no CSG
What wash the difference between 9-10 and 9-12. The threat hasn't changed really. AQ
has no more divisions.
Clarke grabs this because it's a killing instrument we can use now, in real time. Actually
make something happen. Don't have to wait. Take the fight to them. Not by proxy, not
in the firebox, not NA. but can do this.
What risks are you willing to run? Are you willing to put people into harm's way. Can't
do this with an 8,000 mile screwdriver. Have to be on the ground mixing it up.
We could have done in and seized bases and had our CSAR there.
Look at how we are using SOF in Iraq pre-that war. They were there for months.
Basically, Philip's saying that in March 2002, based on what had happened in August,
early September we would have been pretty well set up to avoid this because of the
strategy that was in play.
Cofer Black memo. Why did it take a month to get a PC after the DC was held, to get
strategy going.
Zawahiri? KSM?
CIA had 20% of this. Northern Alliance could get you part way, maybe to 30%. No
further. Was this just doing things to be doing things?
This was not enough
No $ to NA
Mindset is not good enough. What had changed on the ground? Answer.
Need 1986 Finding, broad authorization, everyone thought they had the authorities, or did
they?
Was there a strategy to destroy a Qaeda's infrastructure? To do what the military does,
rampage around the world
Were we using CA in the right way? Were we using it in a way that was inefficient
Strategies
Capabilities
Authorities
Taking out camps? Thousands of jihadists. This was beyone the capability of CIA
without enormous help from the military.
Where does this die, the question of the military? Where does it die? Tenet? Berger?
Shelton? Coehn?
Actionable intelligence, did they have it? Did they have a means to get it?
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Did we use all methods to fight new threat
Strategy for stasis, for containment? Or a roll back strategy? What were we trying to do?
Minimal offensive strategy, but that is hardest o sell. Without public support you can't
get it. How do you sell and offensive strategy. Strong political leadership
CA - use of proxies means time, reliability, they have their own primary concerns,
consistency with our law
By making choices it means you can absorb these hits, they are coming
We can absorb
State, DoD, harden, take anti-terrorism measures, it means we are impervious, but you
have a big problem because it means go after softer targets: Hotels, corporations
CIA used offensively is only a part of our capability, but CIA was a limited response, this
was damage limitation rather than an offensive strategy
What was the info that was in our hands at the time?
Team 1 timeline
What impact did this have on the top policy makers? How did it feed back into intel
actions?
Intel/policy nexus: What information did we have? When did we have it? What did we
do with it?
What worked?
How are we going to suggest intelligence problems? What do we need to do that wasn't
done?
Were these critical moments? Windows? How were they regarded? How did we
respond?
TLAM is not a stategy: needed a larger, and broader strategy, entire array of elements of
national power
Newbold: Too reliant on technical means, criticisms for unimaginative planning and
reluctance probably valid.
Force posture
Hadley sent a memo to deputies to resolve funding issues, and indemnification. How did
he follow through on this? How did Rice and Hadley follow through on this?
The standard is not who was less engaged, it is whether either President was
appropriately engaged?
Not a sufficient recognition that this would require a greater commitment. Recognition
was lacking at the Principals' level
What did they do differently after these threats? What did they do differently? Or was it
just a slow-roll?