A Critique of Federal Agencies Prior to the September 11 - Essay Example

A critique of federal agencies prior to the September 11: Introduction: The failure by s to prevent terrorism led to the 9/11 bombing, some of the reasons why these institutions failed include the failure to share information among agencies, failure to prioritise terrorism and the use of outdate technology and techniques in preventing new forms of terrorism. Several agents are criticised for having failed to effective and efficient in preventing terrorism acts, some of these agents discussed in this paper include the FBI, the INS, CIA, immigration department and the FAA. The FBI: In February 1993 a bomb exploded under the twin towers and the FBI arrested proprietors of the act including Mohammed Salameh and Nidal Ayyad who were convicted, however it was clear that these were not the only individuals who plotted the bombing, (NCTA report (2004) page 74) In the department of justice countering terrorism is under the FBI, before the 9/11 bombing the special agents in FBI field offices were free to set priorities and assign officers appropriately. To avoid duplication each office worked on different cases. The organisation of the FBI was organised in such a way that they did not put much effort on counter terrorism activities and this was due to two reasons. (NCTA report (2004) Page 74) Performance in the FBI was determined by the number of arrests and prosecutions, this made special agents to concentrate more on domestic crimes rather than terrorism because counter terrorism work involved lengthy investigation that in the long run would not yield positive results. This also made individual officers to concentrate much on domestic crimes such as drug crimes and gang crimes. (NCTA report (2004) Page 74) Promotions in the bureau were also based on performance, performance as earlier discussed was determined by the number of arrest and prosecutions, for this reason therefore agents concentrated more on domestic crimes that were easy to solve and therefore most agents who were promoted had little experiences in anti terrorism practices, for this reason therefore high ranking officials at the field offices had little knowledge and experience on how to tackle terrorism.( NCTA report (2004) Page 74) The agency also operated under the office of origin concept, this means that a field office was assigned a specific case, this meant that if a field office was concentrating on a certain case the other officers would be working on other cases, the New York office was assigned the Bin Laden case following the east Africa bombing. As a result of this individual officers were less concerned with the Bin Laden case and this meant that the New York office held all the information regarding al Qaeda. (NCTA report (2004) Page 74) Louise Freeh was appointed as the director of the FBI in 1993, he brought changes in the to bureau including decentralisation, after the 1993 bombing Freeh created a division in the bureau that would concentrate mainly on counterterrorism, the FBI counterterrorism division budget tripled but in 1998 and 2000 the counterterrorism budget remained relatively constant, this meant that the bureau did not concentrate on emphasising more on terrorism, the other problem that arose is that the budget allocated to this new department would be reprogrammed for use in other cases, this was also evident where twice as many individuals in the bureau concentrated on local crimes. (NCTA report (2004) Page 76) This new division was supposed to provide new information that the FBI did not have, however the new division was treated as one that provided assistance to the existing case, the recruitment was done within the FBI and the bureau failed to recruit individuals with relevant education to help in analysis of terrorism, for this reason therefore the creation of the division would not meet the main objective which was to counter terrorism. (NCTA report (2004) Page 77) The FBI also faced some legal constraints in investigating international terrorism, the 1978 congress enacted the foreign surveillance act which regulated collection of information in other nations, and the collection of information from foreign powers required a court review, prior to the bombing the office of intelligent policy review was responsible for representing all the foreign information surveillance act (FISA) to the FISA court for review. In 1995 a US attorney proposed a way by which information would be shared by the FBI and the justice department; however various factors led to the limitation of sharing of information. (NCTA report (2004) Page 79) One of the factors that limited the sharing of information is that the office of intelligent policy threatened not to represent the FBI in the court for warranties in the FISA court if the FBI refused to regulate information sharing with the justice department, and information sharing between the justice department ad the FBI withered. (NCTA report (2004) Page 79) Within the FBI sharing of information also withered even between individual officers in field offices and criminal prosecutors, in 1995 the deputy director of the FBI cautioned the officers that FISA information would no longer be shared with criminal prosecutors and this hindered the sharing of information between agencies. It was evident that information would not be shared with the CIA, national security agency and criminal investigators and this made it impossible to collect information necessary to solve terrorism cases. (NCTA report (2004) Page 79) The NSA finally became cautious in sharing of information regarding the bin Laden case, the NSA would seek approval before sharing this information with anyone and this further hindered the collection and sharing of information between agencies. (NCTA report (2004) page 80) The immigration department: The immigration and naturalization service department was one of the main agency that would have helped stop terrorism, this agency employs over 9,000 border patrol guards, 2000 special agents and 4500 inspectors. It main role it to prevent illegal entry of goods into the US, in 1993 Meissner noted that the agency was using outdated technology such as a manual typewriter, this means that the immigration department was faced with challenges and could not effectively manage and provide support in the anti terrorism campaign. The immigration naturalization service (INS) entered into an agreement with law enforcement agencies, however the terrorist watch list was not provided to them, it was also evident that fraudulent document would be easily obtained, another problem that arose is that mayors imposed restrictions on information where large city mayor would impose limits on INS agents regarding collection of information from employees. The federal aviation department: The federal aviation department was assigned a role to protect the users of airlines, this included provision of security against criminal activities, terrorism and hijacking. Prior to 9/11 no hijack case had been reported and therefore the airline security concentrated much on firearms, explosions and missiles. The airline provided several layers of security and therefore firearms and explosive checks were excellent, however they ignored on board security and this led to the hijackings on that day. The extent of this problem is evident where four planes were hijacked and all the hijackers utilised the same opportunity and used similar methods of taking over the planes. (NCTA report (2004) Page 83) The FAA had an intelligent unit that was supposed to collect information from the CIA and the FBI regarding any possible threat to aviation, this was not the case and no information was shared between the agencies, also the information they possessed had less on terrorism. The security unit also made security changes only after a plot was discovered or disasters occurred, this only provided the opportunity for the terrorist to accomplish their mission. (NCTA report (2004) page 83) The FAA was also supposed to screen passengers and was supposed not to carry those who posed danger to freights, there was a no fly list on that day that contained only 12 individuals, however the government no fly list contained over 60,000 terrorist and the number at the air port screening list was significantly small to perform a security check against terrorism. (NCTA report (2004) Page 84) The other problem with the FAA security check is that they used X rays and metal detectors in screening, however it is evident that some dangerous items may not be well identified from day to day items, the other critic is that the FAA security guide did not prohibit the carrying of knifes that were under 4 inches long, further these knifes were not easy to detect using metal detectors, even after metal detectors detected knifes they would be returned to the traveller. (NCTA report (2004) Page 84) Another problem with the FAA security unit was that pressure to reduce security costs, this meant that the industry was concentrating more on moving passengers; the aviation industry viewed the security unit as a cost and a delay to the achievement of objectives. (NCTA report (2004) Page 85) The common strategy to hijacking prior to 9/11 was that the appropriate way to deal with hijackings is to accommodate demands by the hijackers, they also believed that the longer the time a hijacking lasted the more probable it would end peacefully, therefore suicide hijacking was not considered and that freight crew were not trained on how to coupe with mid air violence. (NCTA report (2004) Page 85) National security agency: The national security agency is supposed to provide information to other agencies in the government if it intercepts terrorism information, NSA had the ability to collect information on conversation between the US citizens and the outside world, however NSA did not seek a warranty which would allow the agency to collect information regarding terrorist in the US who communicated with others in the middle east. They failed to collect this information because they believed that this was a duty of the FBI and this is one way in which this agency failed in countering terrorism. (NCTA report (2004) Page 88) The CIA: The CIA is also an agency that is criticised for failing to provide guidelines on how to tackle terrorism, chiefs of stations in foreign nations were governed by a directive which was issued by the regional division, resource allocation was also determined centrally and therefore there were limitation of provision of appropriate information on terrorism. Another factor that hindered the CIA was that the CIA had in 1960 been investigated by committees and evidence showed that the CIA planned to assassinate Castro. Page 90 The CIA had also been criticised for having not been able to predict the testing of nuclear weapons in India and Pakistan in 1980, the CIA had to disperse their efforts in many priorities and therefore the agency failed to concentrate more on surprise attacks such as new forms of terrorism. (NCTA report (2004) Page 91) Conclusion: From the above discussion it is evident that law enforcement agencies failed to predict and prevent terrorism, some of the agencies criticised include the FBI, FAA, the immigration department and the CIA. The attack was a new form of attack where none of the agencies was trained on how to coupe with such situations, there are recommendation provided by the report on the best ways by which to coupe with terrorism. Reference: National Commission on Terrorist Attacks (2004) The Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, retrieved on 21st January, available at http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report.pdf Read More