UNCLASSIFIED / COMMISSION SENSITIVE

AIRCRAFT AS WEAPONS:
Assessing the Relationship of Intelligence to Policy

(U) Intelligence and policy are inextricably linked - indeed, two sides of the same
national security policymaking process. In ideal form, the Intelligence Community (1C)
provides information to policymakers concerning looming threats, and policymakers
adopt policies to remedy vulnerabilities and preempt threats. Yet the intelligence/policy
nexus is fraught with practical difficulties. The 1C faces the challenge of identifying
credible terrorist threats from among the sea of ambiguous and fragmentary information.
In turn, policymakers face the challenge of implementing policy solutions costly for
government and industry to threats that are largely hypothetical.

(U) The intelligence/policy relationship is at the center of the U.S. Government's

reaction to the threat of aircraft as weapons because countering that threat required the 1C
to identify the threat and policymakers to institute the necessary policies despite the costs.
Faced with a host of other priorities, policymakers would have no need to focus on
preventing aircraft as weapons unless the 1C proved a clear and present danger. And only
policymakers - not the 1C - had authority to adopt policy responses to the aircraft-as-
weapons threat.

(U) Set forth below is a short narrative designed to stimulate discussion

concerning the role of the intelligence/policy relationship in pre-9/11 U.S. vulnerability.
The narrative first offers questions to guide the Commission's analysis. The narrative
then sketches the history of relevant terrorist attacks, aviation security policymaking, and
the IC's counterterrorism activities. A classified summary of the IC's information
concerning aircraft as weapons and a classified timeline are attached.

(U) Key Questions for Assessing the Intelligence/Policy Relationship.

(U) The following questions set forth a framework for assessing the
intelligence/policy relationship concerning aircraft as weapons:

• When should the 1C have perceived the threat of aircraft as weapons?

• When should the 1C have alerted policymakers regarding the threat?
• How should policymakers have reacted to such an alert from the 1C?
• How much warning should have been necessary for policymakers to adopt
policies of varying costs to counter the threat?

(U) Aviation Security, Intelligence, and Terrorism.

(U) Prior to 9/11, both aviation security policymaking and the IC's
counterterrorism activities faced structural challenges. Policymakers wrestled with
dividing the costs for aviation security between the government and the airline industry
and devising a security regime that avoided unduly burdening passengers and crew.
Concomitantly, terrorism presented the 1C with a target vastly different from the Soviet
Union: Terrorists were a non-geographically limited target, unlike the Eurasian-centered
Warsaw Pact, meaning that effective counterterrorism required pooling expertise from

UNCLASSIFIED / COMMISSION SENSITIVE

 UNCLASSIFffiD / COMMISSION SENSITIVE

across the IC's geographically-focused bureaucracy. And counterterrorism was

interdisciplinary, requiring information-sharing between the 1C and federal agencies
responsible for law enforcement, border security, transportation, and financial services. DMT

(U) Moreover, the history of both aviation security policymaking and the IC's
counterterrorism activities is intertwined with the record of terrorist attacks against
Americans beginning in the early 1980s. The U.S. Government's strategies for both
aviation security and counterterrorism evolved over time and in response to terrorist
threats and attacks.

(U) Terrorist attacks against the United States prior to the 1980s aimed at political
rather than mass-casualty objectives. Indeed, from the dawn of commercial aviation to
the mid-1980s, the main threat against U.S. aircraft arose from hijackers. While there \e 134 domestic airc

aboard domestic commercial aircraft between 1955 and 1976, the first clearly terrorist
attack against a U.S. aircraft did not occur until 1976. In that year, a group calling itself
"Fighters for Free Croatia" hijacked an aircraft and eventually surrendered.

(U) The first major mass-casualty terrorist attack against U.S. personnel occurred
in 1983 with the vehicle-bombing of the U.S. embassy and the Marine barracks in Beirut,
[BOTH?]the latter by a suicide bomber. Hundreds of Americans were killed. Terrorists
did not begin targeting aircraft for mass-casualty attacks until 1985. To be sure,
traditional hijackings continued. The 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847 from Athens,
Greece, produced a 17-day standoff during which the hijackers killed a U.S. Navy
serviceman. In response to the TWA hijacking, Congress enacted the International
Security and Development Cooperation Act of 1985 to establish security standards and
procedures concerning foreign air transportation. Also in 1985, an EgyptAir flight from
Athens was hijacked, and two-thirds of the 96 passengers died when Egyptian
commandos stormed the plane.

(U) Yet 1985 also inaugurated the era of mass-casualty aircraft bombings5. In \
1985, Air India Flight 182 from Toronto exploded in-flight, killing 329 passengers, and a
bomb detonated at Tokyo's Narita Airport in checked luggage being transferred to an Air
India aircraft. In 1986, a bomb detonated on TWA Flight 840 from Rome, Italy, but
failed to cripple the aircraft. Also in 1986, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and
Canadian authorities disrupted a plot to bomb an Air India aircraft in the United States.

(U) The IC's organized response to terrorism began in 1986 as well. Early in
1986, President Reagan signed a policy directive on terrorism. A few weeks later, the 1C
created the Counterterrorist Center (CTC), answering to the Director of Central
Intelligence and designed as an all-source fusion center to drive the U.S. Government's
counterterrorism activities. CTC was the IC's chief organizational response to
terrorism's geographic and interdisciplinary challenges. A host of federal agencies sent
liaison officers to CTC, and an FBI official served as a CTC deputy director.

(U) hi 1987, a bomb destroyed Korean Airlines Flight 858, killing all aboard. In
1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was downed over Scotland by a bomb, killing 270 people. The
Pan Am 103 attack led to the most significant policy changes in U.S. aviation security

UNCLASSIFIED / COMMISSION SENSITIVE

 UNCLASSIFIED / COMMISSION SENSITIVE

since the 1970s. These changes centered on the prevention of bombing rather than
hijacking. Most significant was the Aviation Security Improvement Act of 1990, which
strengthened the government's role in aviation securityCtThe Act established the position
of Associate Administrator for Civil Aviation Security in the Federal Aviationx
Administration (FAA) to issue and enforce security standards. The Act also <
FAA's Office of Civil Aviation Security Intelligence to compile intelligence concerning
the threat to civil aviation in order to trigger the application of security measures and the
issuance of security directives, information circulars, and threat assessments. Finally, the
Act increased research and development (R&D) concerning security, and the FAA spent
over $200 million on R&D between 1990 and 1996.

(U) From 1989 to 1994, bombs shattered three foreign aircraft and killed over 300
people. Yet terrorism against Americans in the 1990s witnessed a renewal of terrorism
against ground targets. In 1992, a Yemeni hotel that had housed U.S. servicemen en
route to Somalia was bombed after the servicemen left. Nor was the U.S. homeland
immune. The World Trade Center was attacked in early 1993, and in mid-1993 the FBI
arrested eight individuals and thwarted attacks on New York City landmarks.

(U) In late 1994, a bomb on Philippine Flight 434 from Tokyo killed one person.
Subsequently, the Philippine police discovered the "Bojinka plot" - a scheme of 1993
World Trade Center bombing suspect Ramzi Yousef to bomb multiple U.S. aircraft in the
Asia-Pacific region. Yousef was eventually arrested and extradited to the United States.
Also in late 1994, terrorists hijacked Air France Flight 8969 and threatened to crash the
aircraft into the Eiffel Tower; French commandos stormed the plane. Tom Clancy's
novels Debt of Honor and Executive Order, both featuring terrorists crashing an aircraft
into the [?], were published in 1994 and 1996 respectively. And in the fall of 1994, a
small plane crashed into the White House grounds.

(U) Land-based terrorism continued in the mid- and late-1990s. In November

1995, five Americans were killed in the bombing of the Saudi Arabian National Guard
facility in Riyadh. In June 1996, the Khobar Towers were bombed, killing U.S.
servicemen. In August 1996, Usama Bin Ladin publicly signaled his objectives by
issuing afatwa authorizing attacks on Western targets in the Arabian Peninsula; indeed,
earlier in 1996 the CIA had created a special unit to focus on Bin Ladin. In 1997, African
authorities arrested individuals plotting to attack the U.S. embassy in Nairobi.

(U) While no U.S. aircraft was hijacked or bombed by terrorist in the 1990s,
policymakers continued to focus on aviation security. In 1997, the White House
Commission on Aviation Safety and Security, chaired by Vice President Al Gore, issued .^y-
a report concerning aviation security. Federal Aviation Reauthorization Act of 1996^81^ M|' ^
attendant appropriations legislation implemented many of the report's recommendations,
including [WHAT RECOMMENDATIONS WERE IMPLEMENTED?].

(U) In February 1998, Bin Ladin publicly called for jihad against U.S. civilians
and military personnel world-wide. In a May 1998 press conference, Bin Ladin
discussed "bringing the war home to America." During that same month, President
Clinton signed policy documents on counterterrorism and national infrastructure

UNCLASSIFIED / COMMISSION SENSITIVE

 UNCLASSIFIED / COMMISSION SENSITIVE

AIRCRAFT AS WEAPONS:
Assessing the Relationship of Intelligence to Policy

(U) Intelligence and policy are inextricably linked - indeed, two sides of the same
national security policymaking process. In ideal form, the Intelligence Community (1C)
provides information to policymakers concerning looming threats, and policymakers
adopt policies to remedy vulnerabilities and preempt threats. Yet the intelligence/policy
nexus is fraught with practical difficulties. The 1C faces the challenge of identifying
credible terrorist threats from among the sea of ambiguous and fragmentary information.
In turn, policymakers face the challenge of implementing policy solutions costly for
government and industry to threats that are largely hypothetical.

(U) The intelligence/policy relationship is at the center of the U.S. Government's

reaction to the threat of aircraft as weapons because countering that threat required the 1C
to identify the threat and policymakers to institute the necessary policies despite the costs.
Faced with a host of other priorities, policymakers would have no need to focus on
preventing aircraft as weapons unless the 1C proved a clear and present danger. And only
policymakers - not the 1C - had authority to adopt policy responses to the aircraft-as-
weapons threat.

(U) Set forth below is a short narrative designed to stimulate discussion

concerning the role of the intelligence/policy relationship in pre-9/11 U.S. vulnerability.
The narrative first offers questions to guide the Commission's analysis. The narrative
then sketches the history of relevant terrorist attacks, aviation security policymaking, and
the IC's counterterrorism activities. A classified summary of the IC's information
concerning aircraft as weapons and a classified timeline are attached.

(U) Key Questions for Assessing the Intelligence/Policy Relationship.

(U) The following questions set forth a framework for assessing the
intelligence/policy relationship concerning aircraft as weapons:

• When should the 1C have perceived the threat of aircraft as weapons?

• When should the 1C have alerted policymakers regarding the threat?
• How should policymakers have reacted to such an alert from the 1C?
• How much warning should have been necessary for policymakers to adopt
policies of varying costs to counter the threat?

(U) Aviation Security, Intelligence, and Terrorism.

(U) Prior to 9/11, both aviation security policymaking and the IC's
counterterrorism activities faced structural challenges. Policymakers wrestled with
dividing the costs for aviation security between the government and the airline industry
and devising a security regime that avoided unduly burdening passengers and crew.
Concomitantly, terrorism presented the 1C with a target vastly different from the Soviet
Union: Terrorists were a non-geographically limited target, unlike the Eurasian-centered
Warsaw Pact, meaning that effective counterterrorism required pooling expertise from

UNCLASSIFIED / COMMISSION SENSITIVE

 UNCLASSIFIED / COMMISSION SENSITIVE

across the IC's geographically-focused bureaucracy. And counterterrorism was

interdisciplinary, requiring information-sharing between the 1C and federal agencies
responsible for law enforcement, border security, transportation, and financial services.

(U) Moreover, the history of both aviation security policymaking and the IC's
counterterrorism activities is intertwined with the record of terrorist attacks against
Americans beginning in the early 1980s. The U.S. Government's strategies for both
aviation security and counterterrorism evolved over time and in response to terrorist
threats and attacks.

(U) Terrorist attacks against the United States prior to the 1980s aimed at political
rather than mass-casualty objectives. Indeed, from the dawn of commercial aviation to
the mid-1980s, the main threat against U.S. aircraft arose from hijackers. While there
were 134 domestic aircraft hijackings between 1961 and 1972 and seven explosions
aboard domestic commercial aircraft between 1955 and 1976, the first clearly terrorist
attack against a U.S. aircraft did not occur until 1976. In that year, a group calling itself
"Fighters for Free Croatia" hijacked an aircraft and eventually surrendered.

(U) The first major mass-casualty terrorist attack against U.S. personnel occurred
in 1983 with the vehicle-bombing of the U.S. embassy and the Marine barracks in Beirut,
[BOTH?]the latter by a suicide bomber. Hundreds of Americans were killed. Terrorists
did not begin targeting aircraft for mass-casualty attacks until 1985. To be sure,
traditional hijackings continued. The 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847 from Athens,
Greece, produced a 17-day standoff during which the hijackers killed a U.S. Navy
serviceman. In response to the TWA hijacking, Congress enacted the International
Security and Development Cooperation Act of 1985 to establish security standards and
procedures concerning foreign air transportation. Also in 1985, an EgyptAir flight from
Athens was hijacked, and two-thirds of the 96 passengers died when Egyptian
commandos stormed the plane.

(U) Yet 1985 also inaugurated the era of mass-casualty aircraft bombings. In
1985, Air India Flight 182 from Toronto exploded in-flight, killing 329 passengers, and a
bomb detonated at Tokyo's Narita Airport in checked luggage being transferred to an Air
India aircraft. In 1986, a bomb detonated on TWA Flight 840 from Rome, Italy, but
failed to cripple the aircraft. Also in 1986, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and
Canadian authorities disrupted a plot to bomb an Air India aircraft in the United States.

(U) The IC's organized response to terrorism began in 1986 as well. Early in
1986, President Reagan signed a policy directive on terrorism. A few weeks later, the 1C
created the Counterterrorist Center (CTC), answering to the Director of Central
Intelligence and designed as an all-source fusion center to drive the U.S. Government's
counterterrorism activities. CTC was the IC's chief organizational response to
terrorism's geographic and interdisciplinary challenges. A host of federal agencies sent
liaison officers to CTC, and an FBI official served as a CTC deputy director.

(U) In 1987, a bomb destroyed Korean Airlines Flight 858, killing all aboard. In
1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was downed over Scotland by a bomb, killing 270 people. The
Pan Am 103 attack led to the most significant policy changes in U.S. aviation security

UNCLASSIFIED / COMMISSION SENSITIVE 2

 UNCLASSIFIED / COMMISSION SENSITIVE

since the 1970s. These changes centered on the prevention of bombing rather than
hijacking. Most significant was the Aviation Security improvement Act of 1990, which
strengthened the government's role in aviation security. The Act established the position
of Associate Administrator for Civil Aviation Securiw in the Federal Aviatio
Administration (FAA) to issue and enforce security standards. The 4pt^^@-created the
FAA's Office of Civil Aviation Security Intelligence'to compile intelligence concerning /
the threat to civil aviation in order to trigger the application of security measures and the J
issuance of security directives, information circulars, and threat assessments. Finally, the
Act increased research and development (R&D) concerning security, and the FAA spent
over $200 million on R&D between 1990 and 1996.

(U) From 1989 to 1994, bombs shattered three foreign aircraft and killed over 300
people. Yet terrorism against Americans in the 1990s witnessed a renewal of terrorism
against ground targets. In 1992, a Yemeni hotel that had housed U.S. servicemen en
route to Somalia was bombed after the servicemen left. Nor was the U.S. homeland
immune. The World Trade Center was attacked in early 1993, and in mid-1993 the FBI
arrested eight individuals and thwarted attacks on New York City landmarks.

(U) In late 1994, a bomb on Philippine Flight 434 from Tokyo killed one person.
Subsequently, the Philippine police discovered the "Bojinka plot" - a scheme of 1993
World Trade Center bombing suspect Ramzi Yousef to bomb multiple U.S. aircraft in the
Asia-Pacific region. Yousef was eventually arrested and extradited to the United States.
Also in late 1994, terrorists hijacked Air France Flight 8969 and threatened to crash the
aircraft into the Eiffel Tower; French commandos stormed the plane. Tom Clancy's
novels Debt of Honor and Executive Order, both featuring terrorists crashing an aircraft
into the [?], were published in 1994 and 1996 respectively. And in the fall of 1994, a
small plane crashed into the White House grounds.

(U) Land-based terrorism continued in the mid- and late-1990s. In November

1995, five Americans were killed in the bombing of the Saudi Arabian National Guard
facility in Riyadh. In June 1996, the Khobar Towers were bombed, killing U.S.
servicemen. In August 1996, Usama Bin Ladin publicly signaled his objectives by
issuing afatwa authorizing attacks on Western targets in the Arabian Peninsula; indeed,
earlier in 1996 the CIA had created a special unit to focus on Bin Ladin. In 1997, African
authorities arrested individuals plotting to attack the U.S. embassy in Nairobi.

(U) While no U.S. aircraft was hijacked or bombed by terrorist in the 1990s,
policymakers continued to focus on aviation security. In 1997, the White House
Commission on Aviation Safety and Security, chaired by Vice President Al Gore, issued
a report concerning aviation security. Federal Aviation Reauthorization Act of 1996 and
attendant appropriations legislation implemented many of the report's recommendations,
including [WHAT RECOMMENDATIONS WERE IMPLEMENTED?].

(U) In February 1998, Bin Ladin publicly called for jihad against U.S. civilians
and military personnel world-wide. In a May 1998 press conference, Bin Ladin
discussed "bringing the war home to America." During that same month, President
Clinton signed policy documents on counterterrorism and national infrastructure

UNCLASSIFIED / COMMISSION SENSITIVE

 UNCLASSIFIED / COMMISSION SENSITIVE

protection and appointed Richard Clarke as National Coordinator for Security,

Infrastructure Protection, and Counterterrorism.

(U) In August 1998, hundreds are killed in the bombings of the U.S. embassies in
Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. The U.S. responded with cruise missile attacks against
Afghanistan and Sudan. In November 1998, Bin Ladin was indicted by a federal grand
jury, and in June 1999 the FBI placed Bin Ladin on its "Ten Most Wanted" list. Also that
month, the Chief of CTC testified before Congress that al Qa'ida is planning attacks
within the United States. And in October 1999, the pilot of Egypt Air Flight 990 crashed
the aircraft into the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 217 aboard.

(U) In 2000, an attack on a U.S. warship was aborted. In October 2000, the USS
Cole and British embassy in Yemen were bombed. And in December 2000, Ahmed
Ressam was arrested while attempting to enter Washington State. Numerous foreign
intelligence and law enforcement services watched and detained terrorists worldwide.

WHEN DID CONGRESS REQUIRE FAA AND FBI TO CONDUCT JOINT THREAT
AND VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENTS OF SECURITY AT SELECTED HIGH
RISK AIRPORTS AND TO PROVIDE ANNUAL REPORTS TO CONGRESS?

UNCLASSIFIED / COMMISSION SENSITIVE