Mon, 26 April 2004
Why did the CIA miss 9/11?
Why did US intelligence organisations not anticipate the September 11 2001 attacks on New York and Washington? Right now, at least three sets of explanations vie for attention:
- The CIA and FBI could have put the pieces together, but lack of focus by their political masters prevented it. The former US counter-terrorism head, Richard Clarke, puts this thesis in his book (see summary at The Road to Surfdom) and various interviews.
"I began saying, 'We have to deal with bin Laden; we have to deal with al Qaeda.' Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, said, 'No, no, no. We don't have to deal with al Qaeda. Why are we talking about that little guy? We have to talk about Iraqi terrorism against the United States.'" - The CIA and FBI couldn't have put the pieces together: these things look predictable in hindsight, but beforehand choosing the right pieces of intelligence is like pulling needles out of a hayfield. So says the brilliant journalist Malcolm Gladwell in his New Yorker piece Connecting the Dots: The paradoxes of intelligence reform:
"Their intentions didn't form a pattern. They formed a Rorschach blot. What is clear in hindsight is rarely clear before the fact." - The CIA and FBI could have put the pieces together, but poor analysis prevented it. People were over-confident and didn't plan for different scenarios. Critical thinking expert Paul Monk puts this thesis at Austhink , referring to the second thesis as an "alibi".
The third thesis is perhaps the most interesting, in part because it may hold the greatest hope of long-term change.
The third thesis is also the least developed, Paul Monk needs to develop it further. Worse, based on much of the recent reporting on US decision-making before and after the attacks, it looks simply wrong.
Nevertheless, Monk's essay is as interesting as his other work.
