LISTEN TO THIS MAN -- PLEASE

We still don't know the real reasons why George Tenet has resigned. But the media is rapidly putting its own spin on the story, and that spin is centering on the idea that he wanted out before a series of negative reports comes down, focusing attention of Agency failures.

This morning, the Times publishes a long piece by a CIA official named Paul Pillar, (and bless them for doing so.) I had the pleasure of hearing Pillar speak in public, when he came down here for one of our TISS conferences. I also use his absolutely superb little analysis of issues in counterterrorism as a text in my course on Contemporary Issues in Terrorism. He is thoughtful, insightful, with a long and impressive background in counterterrorism analysis.

His piece this morning is an effort to intervene in the defining of the narrative frame around the resignation, to argue that Tenet not be seen as a scapegoat for the intelligence community's failure to forsee the coming threat from al Queda.

As he notes, there was discussion, an enormous amount of it, about the threat of "catastrophic" terrorism in the 1990s. However:

Shortly before 9/11 I wrote in a book that nonconventional attacks were a genuine and probably growing threat, but that the disproportionate focus on them left a distorted picture of the terrorist threats the United States actually faced. The equating of "catastrophic" with chemical, biological and nuclear threats was misleading, I suggested, because terrorism using conventional means could produce large-scale casualties and because not all nonconventional attacks were guaranteed to do so (as the series of anthrax letters in 2001 would demonstrate).

Just the same, he argues, the 1995 National Intelligence Estimate made the right call:

This line of thinking can also be found in the agencies' 1995 national intelligence estimate on foreign terrorist threats in the United States, which judged that the odds were increasing that terrorists would try to use chemical or biological agents, but that they "were more likely to use the conventional weapons with which they are familiar and which can be extremely destructive."

The estimate postulated that the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 — in which the bombers' objective was to topple the twin towers and kill thousands — had probably crossed a threshold in terms of "large-scale terrorist attacks" and that more of the same would be coming. The kinds of targets the estimate identified as being especially at risk were "national symbols such as the White House and the Capitol and symbols of U.S. capitalism such as Wall Street."

Even more striking, that estimate also made clear that the most likely foreign terrorist threat stemmed from the network of Islamist groups that had formed during the jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. It noted the network's continued reliance on training in Afghanistan, and the animus of its members toward the United States. It warned that members were seeking cover by blending in with the growing Muslim immigrant community in the United States, and that they could move freely because "they know how to take advantage of U.S. laws." (My emph.)

And, just as a kicker, "It also highlighted civil aviation as a vulnerable and attractive target."

Was there no follow up?

Sure. Pillar himself, along with an FBI counterpart, personally met with representatives of the aviation industry to persuade them to strengthen security.

Unfortunately, our powers of persuasion were evidently insufficient to overcome the industry's resistance to expensive new security measures. Still, to imply that the intelligence agencies were in the dark about the possibility of a catastrophic attack is to ignore history.

Of course, since that meeting was set up by the FAA, you have to wonder why they were asleep behind the wheel.

But the 9/11 Commission will be claiming that the CIA ignored the growing threat posed by al Queda specifically.

The intelligence community's early recognition of the threat was reflected, for example, in the creation in the mid-1990's of the first-ever C.I.A. unit focused solely on one person: Mr. bin Laden. The agency communicated its assessment of the danger posed by Al Qaeda in numerous papers, in briefings to senior policymakers and in meetings of Richard Clarke's counterterrorism group at the National Security Council. Mr. Tenet said publicly on many occasions that the agency had identified Mr. bin Laden and Al Qaeda as the No. 1 threat to American security.

Is this about historical accuracy, about making sure that both Tenet's and the CIA's reputation are not unfairly tarnished? No. It's about making sure that the right lessons are learned, essential because al Queda is broken, not destroyed.

The big lesson of the 1990's isn't that the intelligence agencies had no idea of the threat we faced. It is that even their repeated warnings were not sufficient to change national priorities. Two more specific lessons follow. First, national intelligence estimates are not panaceas, either in adding to what the intelligence community conveys to policy makers through other means or in stimulating new agendas. Experience has shown that major policy changes tend to come only from actual disasters.

The second lesson is that the American public needs more of an education in the complexities of international terrorism, and fewer of the oversimplifications that have characterized the current blame game. George Tenet may be leaving government service, but the public would do well to take heed of his testimony to the 9/11 commission, in which he noted that "warning is not good enough without the structure to put it into action."

Update: Why does the story line ultimately adopted for Tenet's resignation matter? Because, as Rich Lowry explains, if you don't want a risk averse intelligence community, then you shouldn't convince them that the price for honest failure is being dragged before a Congressional committee for nationally televised humiliation. Human beings pushing as hard as they can to do a tough job will sometimes fail. If we teach them that failure is unacceptable, we teach them that taking risk is unacceptable. Which is exactly the attitude we were supposed to be correcting. Isn't it?

Comments

[Michael B]

This is the first blog post or news item I've read on the Tenet resignation and wider issues that actually contains some information other than scapegoating or schadenfreude. Have perhaps read two dozen items or posts on this issue, but this is the first that details some support information to more substantially ground its position.

[Mike Daley]

Cori,
Copy of email as a comment!
Mike

Cori,
On this issue, and I think for the first time, we may be parting ways in our thinking.
You quote Pillar in the following exchange or whatever:

“And, just as a kicker, "It also highlighted civil aviation as a vulnerable and attractive target."
Was there no follow up?
Sure. Pillar himself, along with an FBI counterpart, personally met with representatives of the aviation industry to persuade them to strengthen security.
Unfortunately, our powers of persuasion were evidently insufficient to overcome the industry's resistance to expensive new security measures. Still, to imply that the intelligence agencies were in the dark about the possibility of a catastrophic attack is to ignore history.”

Now this is entirely BS, he's claiming that they tried to convince the airlines to voluntarily initiate security procedures that post 9/11 are still being condemned by a substantial portion of both punditry and public, even tho' they are now Federal law.
You and I both know that had all the dots been connected and the terrorist/murderers of 9/11 been denied boarding and arrested there would have been such an outcry about the evil Ashcroft and his minions of Hell from NYT/WaPo/LAT and other regurgitators of Lefty falsehoods that the current administration would be complete toast in the election of '04.
How could they possibly have proved that 9/11 would have occurred without their timely action?
If you'll pardon the expression, this whole thing is an exercise in mental masturbation by people engaged in CYA at somebody else's expense.
Mike Daley
BTW, I think the President should have asked for Tenent's resignation the day after the Inauguration. This is using the Contrarian philosophy that if Clinton thought he was competent, he wasn't!
Mike Daley

[dauber]

Uh, I'm a little confused whether it's an email or a comment, but I dont' see where we part company here at all, Mike -- I think we agree completely and totally. If I'm understanding your argument you are saying that they tried to persuade the airlines and the folks responsible for security on the airlines to do something when in fact had anything real been done all holy hell would have been raised.

There's no inconsistency at all. Hell, I've made those arguments myself as regards the "Phoenix memo."

The Gore Commission suggested a number of techniques for ways to improve airline security. Most were ignored, and the original CAPPS program for flagging security risks was specifically designed to ignore ethnicity and country of origin. Yes, it had the PC built right in.

So it isn't inconsistent to say 1. they tried to send up a flare 2. the industry -- and the agencies involved -- didn't want to hear it, for economic reasons, and for PC reasons 3. they're reminding everyone of this now for CYA purposes and 4. they're right. HOWEVER I don't think Pillar EVER says "if you'd listend to us 9/11 would never have happened." No one can say that, and Pillar's too smart to. And I'd have gone ballistic if he had.

As to Tenet and the quality of his service, I'm not making any claims for now. Other than the fact that the media, which last I checked (which was about 12 hours ago) knew nothing, was jumping to speculate, and through their specualation frame a narrative to suit their tastes, and use that narrative to further one about the intelligence community as a whole that I think is unfair.

[Mike Daley]

Cori,
re:confusion;
Comment was a copy of an email I'd earlier sent you.
Re: parting company;
Your response is pretty indicative that you and I perceive Pillar's comments from opposite directions.
I put him in the Richard Clarke category, "gee, I knew, I'd tried to tell them, but nobody listened". Book to follow!

How did they want the airline industry to "strengthen security"? Stop all Middle Eastern males from boarding any flight? Make sure no passenger had box cutters/nail files/explosive shoes? I don't think so.
Maybe he suggested the pilots should be armed?cockpit doors reinforced? Armed marshals on every flight? I don't think so.
Did he tell them there's a guy named Bin Ladin with a group called al Queda that's going to take over an airliner for a suicide attack? Yeah, right!
If he can tell us where and when he told anybody they had to think outside the box and consider the use of an airliner for a suicide attack rather than a hostage situation I might re-think my lower than a snakes belly opinion of him and all the other civil servants with their superb 20/20 hindsight.
Mike

[thomas]

I am looking for US documents on the creation of al Queda and the taliban by the CIA. Would such documents exist?