WHAT TO DO? A GLOBAL STRATEGY
REFLECTING ON A GENERATIONAL CHALLENGE
Three years after 9/11, Americans are still thinking and talking about how to protect
our nation in this new era. The national debate continues. Countering terrorism has
become, beyond any doubt, the top national security priority for the United States.
This shift has occurred with the full support of the Congress, both major political
parties, the media, and the American people.
The nation has committed enormous resources to national security and to countering
terrorism. Between fiscal year 2001, the last budget adopted before 9/11, and the
present fiscal year 2004, total federal spending on defense (including expenditures
on both Iraq and Afghanistan), homeland security, and international affairs rose
more than 50 percent, from $354 billion to about $547 billion. The United States has
not experienced such a rapid surge in national security spending since the Korean
War.
This pattern has occurred before in American history. The United States faces a
sudden crisis and summons a tremendous exertion of national energy. Then, as that
surge transforms the landscape, comes a time for reflection and reevaluation. Some
programs and even agencies are discarded; others are invented or redesigned. Private
firms and engaged citizens redefine their relationships with government, working
through the processes of the American republic.
Now is the time for that reflection and reevaluation. The United States should
consider what to do-the shape and objectives of a strategy. Americans should also
consider how to do it-organizing their government in a different way. Defining the
Threat In the post-9/11 world, threats are defined more by the fault lines within
societies than by the territorial boundaries between them. From terrorism to global
disease or environmental degradation, the challenges have become transnational
rather than international. That is the defining quality of world politics in the
twenty-first century.
National security used to be considered by studying foreign frontiers, weighing
opposing groups of states, and measuring industrial might. To be dangerous, an enemy
had to muster large armies. Threats emerged slowly, often visibly, as weapons were
forged, armies conscripted, and units trained and moved into place. Because large
states were more powerful, they also had more to lose. They could be deterred.
Now threats can emerge quickly. An organization like al Qaeda, headquartered in a
country on the other side of the earth, in a region so poor that electricity or
telephones were scarce, could nonetheless scheme to wield weapons of unprecedented
destructive power in the largest cities of the United States. In this sense, 9/11
has taught us that terrorism against American interests "over there" should be
regarded just as we regard terrorism against America "over here." In this same
sense, the American homeland is the planet. But the enemy is not just "terrorism,"
some generic evil.
This vagueness blurs the strategy. The catastrophic threat at this moment in history
is more specific. It is the threat posed by Islamist terrorism-especially the al
Qaeda network, its affiliates, and its ideology.
As we mentioned in chapter 2, Usama Bin Ladin and other Islamist terrorist leaders
draw on a long tradition of extreme intolerance within one stream of Islam (a
minority tradition), from at least Ibn Taimiyyah, through the founders of Wahhabism,
through the Muslim Brotherhood, to Sayyid Qutb. That stream is motivated by religion
and does not distinguish politics from religion, thus distorting both. It is further
fed by grievances stressed by Bin Ladin and widely felt throughout the Muslim
world-against the U.S. military presence in the Middle East, policies perceived as
anti-Arab and anti-Muslim, and support of Israel. Bin Ladin and Islamist terrorists
mean exactly what they say: to them America is the font of all evil, the "head of
the snake," and it must be converted or destroyed.
It is not a position with which Americans can bargain or negotiate. With it there is
no common ground-not even respect for life-on which to begin a dialogue. It can only
be destroyed or utterly isolated.
Because the Muslim world has fallen behind the West politically, economically, and
militarily for the past three centuries, and because few tolerant or secular Muslim
democracies provide alternative models for the future, Bin Ladin's message finds
receptive ears. It has attracted active support from thousands of disaffected young
Muslims and resonates powerfully with a far larger number who do not actively
support his methods. The resentment of America and the West is deep, even among
leaders of relatively successful Muslim states.
Tolerance, the rule of law, political and economic openness, the extension of greater
opportunities to women-these cures must come from within Muslim societies
themselves. The United States must support such developments. But this process is
likely to be measured in decades, not years. It is a process that will be violently
opposed by Islamist terrorist organizations, both inside Muslim countries and in
attacks on the United States and other Western nations. The United States finds
itself caught up in a clash within a civilization. That clash arises from particular
conditions in the Muslim world, conditions that spill over into expatriate Muslim
communities in non-Muslim countries. Our enemy is twofold: al Qaeda, a stateless
network of terrorists that struck us on 9/11; and a radical ideological movement in
the Islamic world, inspired in part by al Qaeda, which has spawned terrorist groups
and violence across the globe. The first enemy is weakened, but continues to pose a
grave threat. The second enemy is gathering, and will menace Americans and American
interests long after Usama Bin Ladin and his cohorts are killed or captured. Thus
our strategy must match our means to two ends: dismantling the al Qaeda network and
prevailing in the longer term over the ideology that gives rise to Islamist
terrorism.
Islam is not the enemy. It is not synonymous with terror. Nor does Islam teach
terror. America and its friends oppose a perversion of Islam, not the great world
faith itself. Lives guided by religious faith, including literal beliefs in holy
scriptures, are common to every religion, and represent no threat to us. Other
religions have experienced violent internal struggles. With so many diverse
adherents, every major religion will spawn violent zealots. Yet understanding and
tolerance among people of different faiths can and must prevail. The present
transnational danger is Islamist terrorism. What is needed is a broad
political-military strategy that rests on a firm tripod of policies to
attack terrorists and their organizations;
prevent the continued growth of Islamist terrorism; and
protect against and prepare for terrorist attacks.
More Than a War on Terrorism
Terrorism is a tactic used by individuals and organizations to kill and destroy. Our
efforts should be directed at those individuals and organizations. Calling this
struggle a war accurately describes the use of American and allied armed forces to
find and destroy terrorist groups and their allies in the field, notably in
Afghanistan. The language of war also evokes the mobilization for a national effort.
Yet the strategy should be balanced.
The first phase of our post-9/11 efforts rightly included military action to topple
the Taliban and pursue al Qaeda. This work continues. But long-term success demands
the use of all elements of national power: diplomacy, intelligence, covert action,
law enforcement, economic policy, foreign aid, public diplomacy, and homeland
defense. If we favor one tool while neglecting others, we leave ourselves vulnerable
and weaken our national effort.
Certainly the strategy should include offensive operations to counter terrorism.
Terrorists should no longer find safe haven where their organizations can grow and
flourish. America's strategy should be a coalition strategy, that includes Muslim
nations as partners in its development and implementation. Our effort should be
accompanied by a preventive strategy that is as much, or more, political as it is
military. The strategy must focus clearly on the Arab and Muslim world, in all its
variety.
Our strategy should also include defenses. America can be attacked in many ways and
has many vulnerabilities. No defenses are perfect. But risks must be calculated;
hard choices must be made about allocating resources. Responsibilities for America's
defense should be clearly defined. Planning does make a difference, identifying
where a little money might have a large effect. Defenses also complicate the plans
of attackers, increasing their risks of discovery and failure. Finally, the nation
must prepare to deal with attacks that are not stopped.
Measuring Success
What should Americans expect from their government in the struggle against Islamist
terrorism? The goals seem unlimited: Defeat terrorism anywhere in the world. But
Americans have also been told to expect the worst: An attack is probably coming; it
may be terrible.
With such benchmarks, the justifications for action and spending seem limitless.
Goals are good. Yet effective public policies also need concrete objectives.
Agencies need to be able to measure success.
These measurements do not need to be quantitative: government cannot measure success
in the ways that private firms can. But the targets should be specific enough so
that reasonable observers-in the White House, the Congress, the media, or the
general public-can judge whether or not the objectives have been attained.
Vague goals match an amorphous picture of the enemy. Al Qaeda and its affiliates are
popularly described as being all over the world, adaptable, resilient, needing
little higher-level organization, and capable of anything. The American people are
thus given the picture of an omnipotent, unslayable hydra of destruction. This image
lowers expectations for government effectiveness. It should not lower them too far.
Our report shows a determined and capable group of plotters. Yet the group was
fragile, dependent on a few key personalities, and occasionally left vulnerable by
the marginal, unstable people often attracted to such causes. The enemy made
mistakes-like Khalid al Mihdhar's unauthorized departure from the United States that
required him to enter the country again in July 2001, or the selection of Zacarias
Moussaoui as a participant and Ramzi Binalshibh's transfer of money to him. The U.S.
government was not able to capitalize on those mistakes in time to prevent 9/11. We
do not believe it is possible to defeat all terrorist attacks against Americans,
every time and everywhere. A president should tell the American people:
No president can promise that a catastrophic attack like that of 9/11 will not
happen again. History has shown that even the most vigilant and expert agencies
cannot always prevent determined, suicidal attackers from reaching a target.
But the American people are entitled to expect their government to do its very
best. They should expect that officials will have realistic objectives, clear
guidance, and effective organization. They are entitled to see some standards
for performance so they can judge, with the help of their elected
representatives, whether the objectives are being met.
ATTACK TERRORISTS AND THEIR ORGANIZATIONS
The U.S.government, joined by other governments around the world, is working through
intelligence, law enforcement, military, financial, and diplomatic channels to
identify, disrupt, capture, or kill individual terrorists. This effort was going on
before 9/11 and it continues on a vastly enlarged scale. But to catch terrorists, a
U.S. or foreign agency needs to be able to find and reach them.
No Sanctuaries
The 9/11 attack was a complex international operation, the product of years of
planning. Bombings like those in Bali in 2003 or Madrid in 2004, while able to take
hundreds of lives, can be mounted locally. Their requirements are far more modest in
size and complexity. They are more difficult to thwart. But the U.S. government must
build the capacities to prevent a 9/11-scale plot from succeeding, and those
capabilities will help greatly to cope with lesser but still devastating attacks.
A complex international terrorist operation aimed at launching a catastrophic attack
cannot be mounted by just anyone in any place. Such operations appear to require
time, space, and ability to perform competent planning and staff work;
a command structure able to make necessary decisions and possessing the
authority and contacts to assemble needed people, money, and materials;
opportunity and space to recruit, train, and select operatives with the needed
skills and dedication, providing the time and structure required to socialize
them into the terrorist cause, judge their trustworthiness, and hone their
skills;
a logistics network able to securely manage the travel of operatives, move
money, and transport resources (like explosives) where they need to go;
access, in the case of certain weapons, to the special materials needed for a
nuclear, chemical, radiological, or biological attack;
reliable communications between coordinators and operatives; and
opportunity to test the workability of the plan.
Many details in chapters 2, 5, and 7 illustrate the direct and indirect value of the
Afghan sanctuary to al Qaeda in preparing the 9/11 attack and other operations. The
organization cemented personal ties among veteran jihadists working together there
for years. It had the operational space to gather and sift recruits, indoctrinating
them in isolated, desert camps. It built up logistical networks, running through
Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.
Al Qaeda also exploited relatively lax internal security environments in Western
countries, especially Germany. It considered the environment in the United States so
hospitable that the 9/11 operatives used America as their staging area for further
training and exercises-traveling into, out of, and around the country and
complacently using their real names with little fear of capture. To find sanctuary,
terrorist organizations have fled to some of the least governed, most lawless places
in the world. The intelligence community has prepared a world map that highlights
possible terrorist havens, using no secret intelligence-just indicating areas that
combine rugged terrain, weak governance, room to hide or receive supplies, and low
population density with a town or city near enough to allow necessary interaction
with the outside world. Large areas scattered around the world meet these
criteria.
In talking with American and foreign government officials and military officers on
the front lines fighting terrorists today, we asked them: If you were a terrorist
leader today, where would you locate your base? Some of the same places come up
again and again on their lists:
western Pakistan and the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region
southern or western Afghanistan
the Arabian Peninsula, especially Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and the nearby Horn
of Africa, including Somalia and extending southwest into Kenya
Southeast Asia, from Thailand to the southern Philippines to Indonesia
West Africa, including Nigeria and Mali
European cities with expatriate Muslim communities, especially cities in
central and eastern Europe where security forces and border controls are less
effective
In the twentieth century, strategists focused on the world's great industrial
heartlands. In the twenty-first, the focus is in the opposite direction, toward
remote regions and failing states. The United States has had to find ways to extend
its reach, straining the limits of its influence.
Every policy decision we make needs to be seen through this lens. If, for example,
Iraq becomes a failed state, it will go to the top of the list of places that are
breeding grounds for attacks against Americans at home. Similarly, if we are paying
insufficient attention to Afghanistan, the rule of the Taliban or warlords and
narcotraffickers may reemerge and its countryside could once again offer refuge to
al Qaeda, or its successor.
Recommendation: The U.S. government must identify and prioritize
actual or potential terrorist sanctuaries. For each, it should have a realistic
strategy to keep possible terrorists insecure and on the run, using all elements
of national power. We should reach out, listen to, and work with other countries
that can help.
We offer three illustrations that are particularly applicable today, in 2004:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia.
Pakistan
Pakistan's endemic poverty, widespread corruption, and often ineffective government
create opportunities for Islamist recruitment. Poor education is a particular
concern. Millions of families, especially those with little money, send their
children to religious schools, or madrassahs. Many of these schools are the only
opportunity available for an education, but some have been used as incubators for
violent extremism. According to Karachi's police commander, there are 859 madrassahs
teaching more than 200,000 youngsters in his city alone.
It is hard to overstate the importance of Pakistan in the struggle against Islamist
terrorism. Within Pakistan's borders are 150 million Muslims, scores of al Qaeda
terrorists, many Taliban fighters, and-perhaps-Usama Bin Ladin. Pakistan possesses
nuclear weapons and has come frighteningly close to war with nuclear-armed India
over the disputed territory of Kashmir. A political battle among anti-American
Islamic fundamentalists, the Pakistani military, and more moderate mainstream
political forces has already spilled over into violence, and there have been
repeated recent attempts to kill Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf.
In recent years, the United States has had three basic problems in its relationship
with Pakistan:
On terrorism, Pakistan helped nurture theTaliban. The Pakistani army and
intelligence services, especially below the top ranks, have long been ambivalent
about confronting Islamist extremists. Many in the government have sympathized
with or provided support to the extremists. Musharraf agreed that Bin Ladin was
bad. But before 9/11, preserving good relations with the Taliban took
precedence.
On proliferation, Musharraf has repeatedly said that Pakistan does not barter
with its nuclear technology. But proliferation concerns have been long-standing
and very serious. Most recently, the Pakistani government has claimed not to
have known that one of its nuclear weapons developers, a national figure, was
leading the most dangerous nuclear smuggling ring ever disclosed.
Finally, Pakistan has made little progress toward the return of democratic
rule at the national level, although that turbulent process does continue to
function at the provincial level and the Pakistani press remains relatively
free.
Immediately after 9/11, confronted by the United States with a stark choice, Pakistan
made a strategic decision. Its government stood aside and allowed the U.S.-led
coalition to destroy theTaliban regime. In other ways, Pakistan actively assisted:
its authorities arrested more than 500 al Qaeda operatives and Taliban members, and
Pakistani forces played a leading part in tracking down KSM, Abu Zubaydah, and other
key al Qaeda figures.
In the following two years, the Pakistani government tried to walk the fence, helping
against al Qaeda while seeking to avoid a larger confrontation withTaliban remnants
and other Islamic extremists. When al Qaeda and its Pakistani allies repeatedly
tried to assassinate Musharraf, almost succeeding, the battle came home.
The country's vast unpoliced regions make Pakistan attractive to extremists seeking
refuge and recruits and also provide a base for operations against coalition forces
in Afghanistan. Almost all the 9/11 attackers traveled the northsouth nexus of
Kandahar-Quetta-Karachi. The Baluchistan region of Pakistan (KSM's ethnic home) and
the sprawling city of Karachi remain centers of Islamist extremism where the U.S.
and Pakistani security and intelligence presence has been weak. The U.S. consulate
in Karachi is a makeshift fortress, reflecting the gravity of the surrounding
threat.
During the winter of 2003-2004, Musharraf made another strategic decision. He ordered
the Pakistani army into the frontier provinces of northwest Pakistan along the
Afghan border, where Bin Ladin and Ayman al Zawahiri have reportedly taken refuge.
The army is confronting groups of al Qaeda fighters and their local allies in very
difficult terrain. On the other side of the frontier, U.S. forces in Afghanistan
have found it challenging to organize effective joint operations, given Pakistan's
limited capabilities and reluctance to permit U.S. military operations on its soil.
Yet in 2004, it is clear that the Pakistani government is trying harder than ever
before in the battle against Islamist terrorists.
Acknowledging these problems and Musharraf 's own part in the story, we believe that
Musharraf 's government represents the best hope for stability in Pakistan and
Afghanistan.
In an extraordinary public essay asking how Muslims can "drag ourselves out of
the pit we find ourselves in, to raise ourselves up," Musharraf has called for a
strategy of "enlightened moderation." The Muslim world, he said, should shun
militancy and extremism; the West-and the United States in particular-should
seek to resolve disputes with justice and help better the Muslim world.
Having come close to war in 2002 and 2003, Pakistan and India have recently
made significant progress in peacefully discussing their longstanding
differences. The United States has been and should remain a key supporter of
that process.
The constant refrain of Pakistanis is that the United States long treated them
as allies of convenience. As the United States makes fresh commitments now, it
should make promises it is prepared to keep, for years to come.
Recommendation: If Musharraf stands for enlightened moderation in a
fight for his life and for the life of his country, the United States should be
willing to make hard choices too, and make the difficult long-term commitment to
the future of Pakistan. Sustaining the current scale of aid to Pakistan, the
United States should support Pakistan's government in its struggle against
extremists with a comprehensive effort that extends from military aid to support
for better education, so long as Pakistan's leaders remain willing to make
difficult choices of their own.
Afghanistan
Afghanistan was the incubator for al Qaeda and for the 9/11 attacks. In the fall of
2001, the U.S.-led international coalition and its Afghan allies toppled the Taliban
and ended the regime's protection of al Qaeda. Notable progress has been made.
International cooperation has been strong, with a clear UN mandate and a NATO-led
peacekeeping force (the International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF). More than
10,000 American soldiers are deployed today in Afghanistan, joined by soldiers from
NATO allies and Muslim states. A central government has been established in Kabul,
with a democratic constitution, new currency, and a new army. Most Afghans enjoy
greater freedom, women and girls are emerging from subjugation, and 3 million
children have returned to school. For the first time in many years, Afghans have
reason to hope.
But grave challenges remain. Taliban and al Qaeda fighters have regrouped in the
south and southeast. Warlords control much of the country beyond Kabul, and the land
is awash in weapons. Economic development remains a distant hope. The narcotics
trade-long a massive sector of the Afghan economy- is again booming. Even the most
hardened aid workers refuse to operate in many regions, and some warn that
Afghanistan is near the brink of chaos.
Battered Afghanistan has a chance. Elections are being prepared. It is revealing that
in June 2004, Taliban fighters resorted to slaughtering 16 Afghans on a bus,
apparently for no reason other than their boldness in carrying an unprecedented
Afghan weapon: a voter registration card.
Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, is brave and committed. He is trying to build
genuinely national institutions that can overcome the tradition of allocating powers
among ethnic communities. Yet even if his efforts are successful and elections bring
a democratic government to Afghanistan, the United States faces some difficult
choices.
After paying relatively little attention to rebuilding Afghanistan during the
military campaign, U.S. policies changed noticeably during 2003. Greater
consideration of the political dimension and congressional support for a substantial
package of assistance signaled a longer-term commitment to Afghanistan's future. One
Afghan regional official plaintively told us the country finally has a good
government. He begged the United States to keep its promise and not abandon
Afghanistan again, as it had in the 1990s. Another Afghan leader noted that if the
United States leaves, "we will lose all that we have gained."
Most difficult is to define the security mission in Afghanistan. There is continuing
political controversy about whether military operations in Iraq have had any effect
on the scale of America's commitment to the future of Afghanistan. The United States
has largely stayed out of the central government's struggles with dissident warlords
and it has largely avoided confronting the related problem of narcotrafficking.
Recommendation: The President and the Congress deserve praise for
their efforts in Afghanistan so far. Now the United States and the international
community should make a long-term commitment to a secure and stable Afghanistan,
in order to give the government a reasonable opportunity to improve the life of
the Afghan people. Afghanistan must not again become a sanctuary for
international crime and terrorism. The United States and the international
community should help the Afghan government extend its authority over the
country, with a strategy and nation-by-nation commitments to achieve their
objectives.
This is an ambitious recommendation. It would mean a redoubled effort to
secure the country, disarm militias, and curtail the age of warlord rule. But
the United States and NATO have already committed themselves to the future of
this region-wisely, as the 9/11 story shows-and failed half-measures could be
worse than useless.
NATO in particular has made Afghanistan a test of the Alliance's ability to
adapt to current security challenges of the future. NATO must pass this test.
Currently, the United States and the international community envision enough
support so that the central government can build a truly national army and
extend essential infrastructure and minimum public services to major towns and
regions. The effort relies in part on foreign civil-military teams, arranged
under various national flags. The institutional commitments of NATO and the
United Nations to these enterprises are weak. NATO member states are not
following through; some of the other states around the world that have pledged
assistance to Afghanistan are not fulfilling their pledges.
The U.S. presence in Afghanistan is overwhelmingly oriented toward military
and security work. The State Department presence is woefully understaffed, and
the military mission is narrowly focused on al Qaeda andTaliban remnants in the
south and southeast. The U.S.government can do its part if the international
community decides on a joint effort to restore the rule of law and contain
rampant crime and narcotics trafficking in this crossroads of Central Asia.
We heard again and again that the money for assistance is allocated so rigidly that,
on the ground, one U.S. agency often cannot improvise or pitch in to help another
agency, even in small ways when a few thousand dollars could make a great
difference.
The U.S. government should allocate money so that lower-level officials have more
flexibility to get the job done across agency lines, adjusting to the circumstances
they find in the field. This should include discretionary funds for expenditures by
military units that often encounter opportunities to help the local population.
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia has been a problematic ally in combating Islamic extremism. At the level
of high policy, Saudi Arabia's leaders cooperated with American diplomatic
initiatives aimed at theTaliban or Pakistan before 9/11. At the same time, Saudi
Arabia's society was a place where al Qaeda raised money directly from individuals
and through charities. It was the society that produced 15 of the 19 hijackers.
The Kingdom is one of the world's most religiously conservative societies, and its
identity is closely bound to its religious links, especially its position as the
guardian of Islam's two holiest sites. Charitable giving, or zakat, is one of the
five pillars of Islam. It is broader and more pervasive than Western ideas of
charity- functioning also as a form of income tax, educational assistance, foreign
aid, and a source of political influence. The Western notion of the separation of
civic and religious duty does not exist in Islamic cultures. Funding charitable
works is an integral function of the governments in the Islamic world. It is so
ingrained in Islamic culture that in Saudi Arabia, for example, a department within
the Saudi Ministry of Finance and National Economy collects zakat directly, much as
the U.S. Internal Revenue Service collects payroll withholding tax. Closely tied to
zakat is the dedication of the government to propagating the Islamic faith,
particularly the Wahhabi sect that flourishes in Saudi Arabia.
Traditionally, throughout the Muslim world, there is no formal oversight mechanism
for donations. As Saudi wealth increased, the amounts contributed by individuals and
the state grew dramatically. Substantial sums went to finance Islamic charities of
every kind.
While Saudi domestic charities are regulated by the Ministry of Labor and Social
Welfare, charities and international relief agencies, such as the World Assembly of
Muslim Youth (WAMY), are currently regulated by the Ministry of Islamic Affairs.
This ministry uses zakat and government funds to spread Wahhabi beliefs throughout
the world, including in mosques and schools. Often these schools provide the only
education available; even in affluent countries, Saudi-funded Wahhabi schools are
often the only Islamic schools. Some Wahhabi-funded organizations have been
exploited by extremists to further their goal of violent jihad against non-Muslims.
One such organization has been the al Haramain Islamic Foundation; the assets of
some branch offices have been frozen by the U.S. and Saudi governments.
Until 9/11, few Saudis would have considered government oversight of charitable
donations necessary; many would have perceived it as interference in the exercise of
their faith. At the same time, the government's ability to finance most state
expenditures with energy revenues has delayed the need for a modern income tax
system. As a result, there have been strong religious, cultural, and administrative
barriers to monitoring charitable spending. That appears to be changing, however,
now that the goal of violent jihad also extends to overthrowing Sunni governments
(such as the House of Saud) that are not living up to the ideals of the Islamist
extremists.
The leaders of the United States and the rulers of Saudi Arabia have long had
friendly relations, rooted in fundamentally common interests against the Soviet
Union during the Cold War, in American hopes that Saudi oil supplies would stabilize
the supply and price of oil in world markets, and in Saudi hopes that America could
help protect the Kingdom against foreign threats. In 1990, the Kingdom hosted U.S.
armed forces before the first U.S.-led war WHAT TO DO? A GLOBAL STRATEGY 373 against
Iraq. American soldiers and airmen have given their lives to help protect Saudi
Arabia. The Saudi government has difficulty acknowledging this. American military
bases remained there until 2003, as part of an international commitment to contain
Iraq.
For many years, leaders on both sides preferred to keep their ties quiet and behind
the scenes. As a result, neither the U.S. nor the Saudi people appreciated all the
dimensions of the bilateral relationship, including the Saudi role in U.S.
strategies to promote the Middle East peace process. In each country, political
figures find it difficult to publicly defend good relations with the other. Today,
mutual recriminations flow. Many Americans see Saudi Arabia as an enemy, not as an
embattled ally. They perceive an autocratic government that oppresses women,
dominated by a wealthy and indolent elite. Saudi contacts with American politicians
are frequently invoked as accusations in partisan political arguments. Americans are
often appalled by the intolerance, anti-Semitism, and anti-American arguments taught
in schools and preached in mosques. Saudis are angry too. Many educated Saudis who
were sympathetic to America now perceive the United States as an unfriendly state.
One Saudi reformer noted to us that the demonization of Saudi Arabia in the U.S.
media gives ammunition to radicals, who accuse reformers of being U.S. lackeys. Tens
of thousands of Saudis who once regularly traveled to (and often had homes in) the
United States now go elsewhere.
Among Saudis, the United States is seen as aligned with Israel in its conflict with
the Palestinians, with whom Saudis ardently sympathize. Although Saudi Arabia's
cooperation against terrorism improved to some extent after the September 11
attacks, significant problems remained. Many in the Kingdom initially reacted with
disbelief and denial. In the following months, as the truth became clear, some
leading Saudis quietly acknowledged the problem but still did not see their own
regime as threatened, and thus often did not respond promptly to U.S. requests for
help. Though Saddam Hussein was widely detested, many Saudis are sympathetic to the
anti-U.S. insurgents in Iraq, although majorities also condemn jihadist attacks in
the Kingdom.
As in Pakistan, Yemen, and other countries, attitudes changed when the terrorism came
home. Cooperation had already become significant, but after the bombings in Riyadh
on May 12, 2003, it improved much more. The Kingdom openly discussed the problem of
radicalism, criticized the terrorists as religiously deviant, reduced official
support for religious activity overseas, closed suspect charitable foundations, and
publicized arrests-very public moves for a government that has preferred to keep
internal problems quiet. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is now locked in mortal combat
with al Qaeda. Saudi police are regularly being killed in shootouts with terrorists.
In June 2004, the Saudi ambassador to the United States called publicly-in the Saudi
press-for his government to wage a jihad of its own against the terrorists." We must
all, as a state and as a people, recognize the truth about these criminals," he
declared, "[i]f we do not declare a general mobilization-we will lose this war on
terrorism."
Saudi Arabia is a troubled country. Although regarded as very wealthy, in fact per
capita income has dropped from $28,000 at its height to the present level of about
$8,000. Social and religious traditions complicate adjustment to modern economic
activity and limit employment opportunities for young Saudis. Women find their
education and employment sharply limited. President Clinton offered us a perceptive
analysis of Saudi Arabia, contending that fundamentally friendly rulers have been
constrained by their desire to preserve the status quo. He, like others, made the
case for pragmatic reform instead. He hopes the rulers will envision what they want
their Kingdom to become in 10 or 20 years, and start a process in which their
friends can help them change.
There are signs that Saudi Arabia's royal family is trying to build a consensus for
political reform, though uncertain about how fast and how far to go. Crown Prince
Abdullah wants the Kingdom to join the World Trade Organization to accelerate
economic liberalization. He has embraced the Arab Human Development Report, which
was highly critical of the Arab world's political, economic, and social failings and
called for greater economic and political reform.
Cooperation with Saudi Arabia against Islamist terrorism is very much in the U.S.
interest. Such cooperation can exist for a time largely in secret, as it does now,
but it cannot grow and thrive there. Nor, on either side, can friendship be
unconditional.
Recommendation: The problems in the U.S.-Saudi relationship must be
confronted, openly. The United States and Saudi Arabia must determine if they
can build a relationship that political leaders on both sides are prepared to
publicly defend-a relationship about more than oil. It should include a shared
commitment to political and economic reform, as Saudis make common cause with
the outside world. It should include a shared interest in greater tolerance and
cultural respect, translating into a commitment to fight the violent extremists
who foment hatred.
PREVENT THE CONTINUED GROWTH OF ISLAMIST TERRORISM
In October 2003, reflecting on progress after two years of waging the global war on
terrorism, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked his advisers:"Are we capturing,
killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and
the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us? Does the US
need to fashion a broad, integrated plan to stop the next generation of terrorists?
The US is putting relatively little effort into a long-range plan, but we are
putting a great deal of effort into trying to stop terrorists. The cost-benefit
ratio is against us! Our cost is billions against the terrorists' costs of
millions."
These are the right questions. Our answer is that we need short-term action on a
long-range strategy, one that invigorates our foreign policy with the attention that
the President and Congress have given to the military and intelligence parts of the
conflict against Islamist terrorism.
Engage the Struggle of Ideas
The United States is heavily engaged in the Muslim world and will be for many years
to come. This American engagement is resented. Polls in 2002 found that among
America's friends, like Egypt-the recipient of more U.S. aid for the past 20 years
than any other Muslim country-only 15 percent of the population had a favorable
opinion of the United States. In Saudi Arabia the number was 12 percent. And
two-thirds of those surveyed in 2003 in countries from Indonesia to Turkey (a NATO
ally) were very or somewhat fearful that the United States may attack them.
Support for the United States has plummeted. Polls taken in Islamic countries after
9/11 suggested that many or most people thought the United States was doing the
right thing in its fight against terrorism; few people saw popular support for al
Qaeda; half of those surveyed said that ordinary people had a favorable view of the
United States. By 2003, polls showed that "the bottom has fallen out of support for
America in most of the Muslim world. Negative views of the U.S. among Muslims, which
had been largely limited to countries in the Middle East, have spread. . . . Since
last summer, favorable ratings for the U.S. have fallen from 61% to 15% in Indonesia
and from 71% to 38% among Muslims in Nigeria."
Many of these views are at best uninformed about the United States and, at worst,
informed by cartoonish stereotypes, the coarse expression of a fashionable
"Occidentalism" among intellectuals who caricature U.S. values and policies. Local
newspapers and the few influential satellite broadcasters-like al Jazeera-often
reinforce the jihadist theme that portrays the United States as anti-Muslim.
The small percentage of Muslims who are fully committed to Usama Bin Ladin's version
of Islam are impervious to persuasion. It is among the large majority of Arabs and
Muslims that we must encourage reform, freedom, democracy, and opportunity, even
though our own promotion of these messages is limited in its effectiveness simply
because we are its carriers. Muslims themselves will have to reflect upon such basic
issues as the concept of jihad, the position of women, and the place of non-Muslim
minorities. The United States can promote moderation, but cannot ensure its
ascendancy. Only Muslims can do this.
The setting is difficult. The combined gross domestic product of the 22 countries in
the Arab League is less than the GDP of Spain. Forty percent of adult Arabs are
illiterate, two-thirds of them women. One-third of the broader Middle East lives on
less than two dollars a day. Less than 2 percent of the population has access to the
Internet. The majority of older Arab youths have expressed a desire to emigrate to
other countries, particularly those in Europe.
In short, the United States has to help defeat an ideology, not just a group of
people, and we must do so under difficult circumstances. How can the United States
and its friends help moderate Muslims combat the extremist ideas?
Recommendation: The U.S. government must define what the message is,
what it stands for. We should offer an example of moral leadership in the world,
committed to treat people humanely, abide by the rule of law, and be generous
and caring to our neighbors. America and Muslim friends can agree on respect for
human dignity and opportunity. To Muslim parents, terrorists like Bin Ladin have
nothing to offer their children but visions of violence and death. America and
its friends have a crucial advantage-we can offer these parents a vision that
might give their children a better future. If we heed the views of thoughtful
leaders in the Arab and Muslim world, a moderate consensus can be found.
That vision of the future should stress life over death: individual educational and
economic opportunity. This vision includes widespread political participation and
contempt for indiscriminate violence. It includes respect for the rule of law,
openness in discussing differences, and tolerance for opposing points of view.
Recommendation: Where Muslim governments, even those who are
friends, do not respect these principles, the United States must stand for a
better future. One of the lessons of the long Cold War was that short-term gains
in cooperating with the most repressive and brutal governments were too often
outweighed by long-term setbacks for America's stature and interests.
American foreign policy is part of the message. America's policy choices have
consequences. Right or wrong, it is simply a fact that American policy regarding the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and American actions in Iraq are dominant staples of
popular commentary across the Arab and Muslim world. That does not mean U.S. choices
have been wrong. It means those choices must be integrated with America's message of
opportunity to the Arab and Muslim world. Neither Israel nor the new Iraq will be
safer if worldwide Islamist terrorism grows stronger.
The United States must do more to communicate its message. Reflecting on Bin Ladin's
success in reaching Muslim audiences, Richard Holbrooke wondered, " How can a man in
a cave outcommunicate the world's leading communications society?" Deputy Secretary
of State Richard Armitage worried to us that Americans have been "exporting our
fears and our anger,"not our vision of opportunity and hope.
Recommendation: Just as we did in the Cold War, we need to defend
our ideals abroad vigorously. America does stand up for its values. The United
States defended, and still defends, Muslims against tyrants and criminals in
Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. If the United States does not
act aggressively to define itself in the Islamic world, the extremists will
gladly do the job for us.
Recognizing that Arab and Muslim audiences rely on satellite
television and radio, the government has begun some promising initiatives in
television and radio broadcasting to the Arab world, Iran, and Afghanistan.
These efforts are beginning to reach large audiences. The Broadcasting Board
of Governors has asked for much larger resources. It should get them.
The United States should rebuild the scholarship, exchange, and
library programs that reach out to young people and offer them knowledge and
hope. Where such assistance is provided, it should be identified as coming
from the citizens of the United States.
An Agenda of Opportunity
The United States and its friends can stress educational and economic opportunity.
The United Nations has rightly equated "literacy as freedom."
The international community is moving toward setting a concrete goal-to cut
the Middle East region's illiteracy rate in half by 2010, targeting women and
girls and supporting programs for adult literacy.
Unglamorous help is needed to support the basics, such as textbooks that
translate more of the world's knowledge into local languages and libraries to
house such materials. Education about the outside world, or other cultures, is
weak.
More vocational education is needed, too, in trades and business skills. The
Middle East can also benefit from some of the programs to bridge the digital
divide and increase Internet access that have already been developed for other
regions of the world.
Education that teaches tolerance, the dignity and value of each individual, and
respect for different beliefs is a key element in any global strategy to eliminate
Islamist terrorism.
Recommendation: The U.S. government should offer to join with other
nations in generously supporting a new International Youth Opportunity Fund.
Funds will be spent directly for building and operating primary and secondary
schools in those Muslim states that commit to sensibly investing their own money
in public education.
Economic openness is essential. Terrorism is not caused by poverty. Indeed, many
terrorists come from relatively well-off families. Yet when people lose hope, when
societies break down, when countries fragment, the breeding grounds for terrorism
are created. Backward economic policies and repressive political regimes slip into
societies that are without hope, where ambition and passions have no constructive
outlet.
The policies that support economic development and reform also have political
implications. Economic and political liberties tend to be linked. Commerce,
especially international commerce, requires ongoing cooperation and compromise, the
exchange of ideas across cultures, and the peaceful resolution of differences
through negotiation or the rule of law. Economic growth expands the middle class, a
constituency for further reform. Successful economies rely on vibrant private
sectors, which have an interest in curbing indiscriminate government power. Those
who develop the practice of controlling their own economic destiny soon desire a
voice in their communities and political societies.
The U.S. government has announced the goal of working toward a Middle East Free Trade
Area, or MEFTA, by 2013. The United States has been seeking comprehensive free trade
agreements (FTAs) with the Middle Eastern nations most firmly on the path to reform.
The U.S.-Israeli FTA was enacted in 1985, and Congress implemented an FTA with
Jordan in 2001. Both agreements have expanded trade and investment, thereby
supporting domestic economic reform. In 2004, new FTAs were signed with Morocco and
Bahrain, and are awaiting congressional approval. These models are drawing the
interest of their neighbors. Muslim countries can become full participants in the
rules-based global trading system, as the United States considers lowering its trade
barriers with the poorest Arab nations.
Recommendation: A comprehensive U.S. strategy to counter terrorism
should include economic policies that encourage development, more open
societies, and opportunities for people to improve the lives of their families
and to enhance prospects for their children's future.
Turning a National Strategy into a Coalition Strategy
Practically every aspect of U.S.counterterrorism strategy relies on international
cooperation. Since 9/11, these contacts concerning military, law enforcement,
intelligence, travel and customs, and financial matters have expanded so
dramatically, and often in an ad hoc way, that it is difficult to track these
efforts, much less integrate them.
Recommendation: The United States should engage other nations in
developing a comprehensive coalition strategy against Islamist terrorism. There
are several multilateral institutions in which such issues should be addressed.
But the most important policies should be discussed and coordinated in a
flexible contact group of leading coalition governments. This is a good place,
for example, to develop joint strategies for targeting terrorist travel, or for
hammering out a common strategy for the places where terrorists may be finding
sanctuary.
Presently the Muslim and Arab states meet with each other, in organizations such as
the Islamic Conference and the Arab League. The Western states meet with each other
in organizations such as NATO and the Group of Eight summit of leading industrial
nations. A recent G-8 summit initiative to begin a dialogue about reform may be a
start toward finding a place where leading Muslim states can discuss-and be seen to
discuss-critical policy issues with the leading Western powers committed to the
future of the Arab and Muslim world. These new international efforts can create
durable habits of visible cooperation, as states willing to step up to their
responsibilities join together in constructive efforts to direct assistance and
coordinate action.
Coalition warfare also requires coalition policies on what to do with enemy captives.
Allegations that the United States abused prisoners in its custody make it harder to
build the diplomatic, political, and military alliances the government will need.
The United States should work with friends to develop mutually agreed-on principles
for the detention and humane treatment of captured international terrorists who are
not being held under a particular country's criminal laws. Countries such as
Britain, Australia, and Muslim friends, are committed to fighting terrorists.
America should be able to reconcile its views on how to balance humanity and
security with our nation's commitment to these same goals. The United States and
some of its allies do not accept the application of full Geneva Convention treatment
of prisoners of war to captured terrorists. Those Conventions establish a minimum
set of standards for prisoners in internal conflicts. Since the international
struggle against Islamist terrorism is not internal, those provisions do not
formally apply, but they are commonly accepted as basic standards for humane
treatment.
Recommendation: The United States should engage its friends to
develop a common coalition approach toward the detention and humane treatment of
captured terrorists. New principles might draw upon Article 3 of the Geneva
Conventions on the law of armed conflict. That article was specifically designed
for those cases in which the usual laws of war did not apply. Its minimum
standards are generally accepted throughout the world as customary international
law.
Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction
The greatest danger of another catastrophic attack in the United States will
materialize if the world's most dangerous terrorists acquire the world's most
dangerous weapons. As we note in chapter 2, al Qaeda has tried to acquire or make
nuclear weapons for at least ten years. In chapter 4, we mentioned officials
worriedly discussing, in 1998, reports that Bin Ladin's associates thought their
leader was intent on carrying out a "Hiroshima." These ambitions continue. In the
public portion of his February 2004 worldwide threat assessment to Congress,
DCITenet noted that Bin Ladin considered the acquisition of weapons of mass
destruction to be a "religious obligation." He warned that al Qaeda "continues to
pursue its strategic goal of obtaining a nuclear capability." Tenet added that "more
than two dozen other terrorist groups are pursuing CBRN [chemical, biological,
radiological, and nuclear] materials."
A nuclear bomb can be built with a relatively small amount of nuclear material. A
trained nuclear engineer with an amount of highly enriched uranium or plutonium
about the size of a grapefruit or an orange, together with commercially available
material, could fashion a nuclear device that would fit in a van like the one Ramzi
Yousef parked in the garage of the World Trade Center in 1993. Such a bomb would
level Lower Manhattan.
The coalition strategies we have discussed to combat Islamist terrorism should
therefore be combined with a parallel, vital effort to prevent and counter the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). We recommend several initiatives
in this area.
Strengthen Counterproliferation Efforts.
While efforts to shut down Libya's illegal nuclear program have been generally
successful, Pakistan's illicit trade and the nuclear smuggling networks of Pakistani
scientist A.Q. Khan have revealed that the spread of nuclear weapons is a problem of
global dimensions. Attempts to deal with Iran's nuclear program are still underway.
Therefore, the United States should work with the international community to develop
laws and an international legal regime with universal jurisdiction to enable the
capture, interdiction, and prosecution of such smugglers by any state in the world
where they do not disclose their activities.
Expand the Proliferation Security Initiative.
In May 2003, the Bush administration announced the Proliferation Security Initiative
(PSI): nations in a willing partnership combining their national capabilities to use
military, economic, and diplomatic tools to interdict threatening shipments of WMD
and missile-related technology.
The PSI can be more effective if it uses intelligence and planning resources of the
NATO alliance. Moreover, PSI membership should be open to non- NATO countries.
Russia and China should be encouraged to participate.
Support the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program.
Outside experts are deeply worried about the U.S. government's commitment and
approach to securing the weapons and highly dangerous materials still scattered in
Russia and other countries of the Soviet Union. The government's main instrument in
this area, the CooperativeThreat Reduction Program (usually referred to as
"Nunn-Lugar," after the senators who sponsored the legislation in 1991), is now in
need of expansion, improvement, and resources. The U.S. government has recently
redoubled its international commitments to support this program, and we recommend
that the United States do all it can, if Russia and other countries will do their
part. The government should weigh the value of this investment against the
catastrophic cost America would face should such weapons find their way to the
terrorists who are so anxious to acquire them.
Recommendation: Our report shows that al Qaeda has tried to acquire
or make weapons of mass destruction for at least ten years. There is no doubt
the United States would be a prime target. Preventing the proliferation of these
weapons warrants a maximum effort-by strengthening counterproliferation efforts,
expanding the Proliferation Security Initiative, and supporting the Cooperative
Threat Reduction program.
Targeting Terrorist Money
The general public sees attacks on terrorist finance as a way to "starve the
terrorists of money." So, initially, did the U.S. government. After 9/11, the United
States took aggressive actions to designate terrorist financiers and freeze their
money, in the United States and through resolutions of the United Nations. These
actions appeared to have little effect and, when confronted by legal challenges, the
United States and the United Nations were often forced to unfreeze assets.
The difficulty, understood later, was that even if the intelligence community might
"link" someone to a terrorist group through acquaintances or communications, the
task of tracing the money from that individual to the terrorist group, or otherwise
showing complicity, was far more difficult. It was harder still to do so without
disclosing secrets.
These early missteps made other countries unwilling to freeze assets or otherwise act
merely on the basis of a U.S. action. Multilateral freezing mechanisms now require
waiting periods before being put into effect, eliminating the element of surprise
and thus virtually ensuring that little money is actually frozen. Worldwide asset
freezes have not been adequately enforced and have been easily circumvented, often
within weeks, by simple methods. But trying to starve the terrorists of money is
like trying to catch one kind of fish by draining the ocean. A better strategy has
evolved since those early months, as the government learned more about how al Qaeda
raises, moves, and spends money.
Recommendation: Vigorous efforts to track terrorist financing must
remain front and center in U.S. counterterrorism efforts. The government has
recognized that information about terrorist money helps us to understand their
networks, search them out, and disrupt their operations. Intelligence and law
enforcement have targeted the relatively small number of financial
facilitators-individuals al Qaeda relied on for their ability to raise and
deliver money-at the core of al Qaeda's revenue stream. These efforts have
worked. The death or capture of several important facilitators has decreased the
amount of money available to al Qaeda and has increased its costs and difficulty
in raising and moving that money. Captures have additionally provided a windfall
of intelligence that can be used to continue the cycle of disruption.
The U.S. financial community and some international financial institutions have
generally provided law enforcement and intelligence agencies with extraordinary
cooperation, particularly in supplying information to support quickly developing
investigations. Obvious vulnerabilities in the U.S. financial system have been
corrected. The United States has been less successful in persuading other countries
to adopt financial regulations that would permit the tracing of financial
transactions.
Public designation of terrorist financiers and organizations is still part of the
fight, but it is not the primary weapon. Designations are instead a form of
diplomacy, as governments join together to identify named individuals and groups as
terrorists. They also prevent open fundraising. Some charities that have been
identified as likely avenues for terrorist financing have seen their donations WHAT
TO DO? A GLOBAL STRATEGY 383 diminish and their activities come under more scrutiny,
and others have been put out of business, although controlling overseas branches of
Gulf-area charities remains a challenge. The Saudi crackdown after the May 2003
terrorist attacks in Riyadh has apparently reduced the funds available to al
Qaeda-perhaps drastically-but it is too soon to know if this reduction will last.
Though progress apparently has been made, terrorists have shown considerable
creativity in their methods of moving money. If al Qaeda is replaced by smaller,
decentralized terrorist groups, the premise behind the government's efforts-that
terrorists need a financial support network-may become outdated. Moreover, some
terrorist operations do not rely on outside sources of money and may now be
self-funding, either through legitimate employment or low-level criminal
activity.
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 analyze defenses.
They plan accordingly.
Defenses cannot achieve perfect safety. They make targets harder to attack
successfully, and they deter attacks by making capture more likely. Just increasing
the attacker's odds of failure may make the difference between a plan attempted, or
a plan discarded. The enemy also may 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 U.S. borders at legal entry points, about
330 million of them noncitizens. Another 500,000 or more enter illegally without
inspection across America's thousands of miles of land borders or 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 U.S. government systematically analyzed 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 weaknesses 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 4 to 15 hijackers
and more effective use of information available in U.S. government databases could
have identified up to 3 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 bona fide 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 or what 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 showed that two systemic weaknesses came together in our border
system's inability to contribute to an effective defense against the 9/11 attacks: a
lack of well-developed counterterrorism measures as a part of border security and an
immigration system not able to deliver on its basic commitments, much less support
counterterrorism. 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 watchlist
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 it34-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
travelers 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 counterterrorism 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 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 counterterrorism 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 problem across agencies and functions and develop a conceptual
framework-an 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 systemically, not in an ad 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 standardized
information in "feeder" documents used in identifying individuals. Biometric
identifiers that measure unique physical characteristics, such as facial features,
fingerprints, or iris scans, and reduce them to digitized, numerical statements
called algorithms, are just beginning to be used. Travel history, however, is still
recorded in passports with entry-exit stamps called cachets, which al Qaeda has
trained its operatives to forge and use 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 painstaking negotiations, and records that are not yet
digitized are difficult to search or analyze. The development of terrorist
indicators has hardly begun, and behavioral 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
travelers 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
judgment. Overreactions can impose high costs too-on individuals, our economy, and
our beliefs about justice.
A special note on the importance of trusting subjective judgment: 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 judgment. 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 U.S. 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 systemwide 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 U.S. 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 counterterrorism.
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 Immigrant Status
Indicator Technology program). It takes two biometric identifiers-digital
photographs and prints of two index fingers-from travelers. False identities are
used by terrorists to avoid being detected on a watchlist. 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. While visitors from
"visa waiver" countries will be added to the program, beginning this year, covered
travelers will still constitute only about 12 percent of all noncitizens crossing
U.S. 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 U.S. persons are exempt from
carrying passports when returning from Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean. The
current system enables non-U.S. citizens to gain entry by showing minimal
identification. The 9/11 experience shows that terrorists study and exploit
America's vulnerabilities.
To balance this measure, programs to speed known travelers 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 travelers. An
individual should be able to preenroll, 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
traveler programs, should be consolidated with the USVISIT 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 U.S. 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 offices to
immigration services offices-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.
Admitting large numbers of students, scholars, businesspeople, and tourists fuels
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 percent since 2001. In the Middle East, they declined
about 46 percent. Training and the design of security measures should be
continuously adjusted.
Recommendation: The Department of Homeland Security, properly
supported by the Congress, should complete, as quickly as possible, a biometric
entry-exit screening system, including a single system for speeding qualified
travelers. 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 decisionmaking 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 (ICAO). The global
standard for identification is a digital photograph; fingerprints are optional. We
must 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 over the 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 9 million people are in the United States
outside 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. All
but one of the 9/11 hijackers acquired some form of U.S. 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 drivers licenses. Fraud in
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 U.S. 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 (TSA), 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 U.S. transportation sector. Over 90 percent 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 to meet congressional mandates to federalize 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
analyzing 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 U.S. 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 may 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 standoff 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 CAPPS. More than half were identified for further inspection, which applied
only to their checked luggage.
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 selectee" lists include
only those individuals who the U.S. government believes pose a direct threat of
attacking aviation.
Because air carriers implement the program, concerns about sharing intelligence
information with private firms and foreign countries keep the U.S.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 CAPPS. The deployment of this system has been delayed because of claims
it may violate civil liberties.
Recommendation: Improved use of "no-fly" and "automatic selectee"
lists should not be delayed while the argument about a successor to CAPPS
continues. This screening function should be performed by the TSA, and it should
utilize the larger set of watchlists maintained by the federal government. Air
carriers should be required to supply the information needed to test and
implement this new system.
CAPPS 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. TheTSA 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 theTSA'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:
(1) screening people for explosives, not just their carry-on bags, and (2) improving
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 counterterrorism effort. Even without the
changes we recommend, the American public has vested enormous authority in the U.S.
government.
At our first public hearing on March 31, 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. Therefore, 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
private 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 noncontroversial, updating
America's surveillance laws to reflect technological developments in a digital age.
Some executive actions that have been criticized 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 defend our 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. Our 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 domestic 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, organizing 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 appropriated 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 for 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 be required to abide by those benchmarks in disbursing 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 decisionmakers who are represented at the incident command level help
to ensure an effective response, the efficient use of resources, and responder
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 (ICS). 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, upon the
adoption and regular use of ICS and unified command procedures. In the future,
the Department of Homeland Security should consider making funding 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 local jurisdictions where the hijacked airliners crashed.
While many jurisdictions have established mutual aid compacts, a serious obstacle to
multijurisdictional response has been the lack of indemnification for mutual-aid
responders in areas such as the National Capital Region.
Public safety organizations, 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 long-standing indemnification and liability impediments to
the provision of public safety mutual aid in the National Capital Region and where
applicable throughout the nation. The inability to communicate was a critical
element at the World Trade Center, 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 organizations 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, D.C., should establish signal corps 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
percent 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 of operations should include (1) a plan for evacuation, (2) adequate
communications capabilities, and (3) a plan for continuity of operations. As we
examined the emergency response to 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 Standard 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. Based on the existing 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.
Recommendation: We endorse the American National Standards
Institute's recommended standard for private preparedness. We were encouraged by
Secretary Tom Ridge's praise of the standard, and urge the Department of
Homeland Security to promote its adoption. We also encourage the insurance and
credit-rating industries to look closely at a company's compliance with the ANSI
standard in assessing its insurability and creditworthiness. We believe that
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-9/11
world. It is ignored at a tremendous potential cost in lives, money, and
national security.
