Printable Version
Intelligence Failure
By Pierre Thomas, ABC Primetime
Live
September 11, 2006 Monday
CHARLES GIBSON 9/11 was, above all, an intelligence failure. A failure to, in a phrase we've heard so many times, connect the dots. Well, one of the key recommendations of the 9/11 Commission was the creation of a new agency, The National Counter Terrorism Center. Its mission? Identify every dot and look for every possible connection. It was built at a cost of $700 million. ABC's Pierre Thomas was granted rare access to the center's secret command post.
PIERRE THOMAS (ABC NEWS)
(Voiceover) You're looking at the nerve center of the nation's war on terror, where every available technology is used to track al Qaeda. It did not exist before 9/11. It's all been built to stop terrorists who have a single goal.
ROBERT MUELLER (FBI DIRECTOR)
To kill as many American men, women and children as they can as they themselves die.
PIERRE THOMAS (ABC NEWS)
(Voiceover) It's 8 AM and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI director, Robert Mueller are on their way to the White House to brief the President. Law enforcement officials are under more pressure than ever after the intelligence failures of 9/11. Billions have been spent in the largest government overhaul in US history. But has the government truly learned from past mistakes? Republican Senator Charles Grassley is not convinced.
SENATOR CHARLES GRASSLEY (REPUBLICAN
In some better, but it's not good enough to stop another 9/11.
PIERRE THOMAS (ABC NEWS)
(Voiceover) Perhaps the government's greatest blunder before 9/11 was the failure to share information. In the days leading up to the attacks, the CIA did not tell the FBI two al Qaeda members were in the country. They turned out to be hijackers.
ROBERT MUELLER (FBI DIRECTOR)
The pain, the hurt, the grief, you come away from that with the belief that you never want that to happen again. And you will do anything you can to make sure that it does not.
PIERRE THOMAS (ABC NEWS)
(Voiceover) The National Counterterrorism Center, housed at a secret location outside of Washington was created to force the nation's 16 intelligence agencies to work together. Don Lauren (PH) is deputy director.
DON LAUREN (NATIONAL COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER)
Each person has access to all of the different agencies' information, which is something unique in the, in the history of information sharing and cooperation. And I believe this is a direct result from 9/11.
PIERRE THOMAS (ABC NEWS)
(Voiceover) Twenty-four hours a day, analysts from the various agencies work side by side in this space without walls. They produce what may be the government's most critical daily report. This book, the top-secret 'Threat Matrix," which contains the latest terrorism intelligence. The 'Matrix" is the subject of three secure video conference calls held here to launch investigations to determine if the threats are real.
JOHN BRENNAN (INTERIM DIRECTOR
You want to make sure that you're doing everything possible. You go home at night, thinking about what were those dots that I didn't connect? What else do I need to know? What should I have done that I didn't do?
PIERRE THOMAS (ABC NEWS)
(Voiceover) John Brennan, the former head of the center, remembers the pressure. A 25-year CIA veteran, Brennan says, while improvements have been made, duplication among agencies remains. And he says, John Negroponte, the nation's new intelligence director has yet to fully focus counterterrorism efforts.
JOHN BRENNAN (INTERIM DIRECTOR
It's an additional layer of bureaucracy. There still needs to be more streamlining of the intelligence community.
PIERRE THOMAS (ABC NEWS)
(Voiceover) Tim Roemer, a member of the 9/11 Commission says, the intelligence director's office may now be part of the problem.
TIM ROEMER (9/11 COMMISSION MEMBER)
It is getting way too big. It's twice as big as it should be. And it's hiring some of the same people with the pre-9/11 mind-set.
PIERRE THOMAS (ABC NEWS)
(Voiceover) And some members of Congress are convinced in-fighting still remains. Jane Harman is the ranking Democrat of the House Intelligence Committee.
REPRESENTATIVE JANE HARMAN (DEMOCRAT
Old cultures die hard. And as I've often said, the dirtiest four-letter word in government is spelled T-U-R-F.
PIERRE THOMAS (ABC NEWS)
(Voiceover) The Federal Government is being forced to change its culture. And perhaps no agency has been under greater scrutiny than the FBI. Every morning, the FBI Director and the Attorney General begin their day discussing the terrorism threats that developed overnight.
PIERRE THOMAS (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) Each morning, what is the volume of threats? Is it high? And how many are serious?
ROBERT MUELLER (FBI DIRECTOR)
The matrix we get has, anywhere it's from, I would say, 10 to 15 pages generally. But it's threats not just to the United States, but threats against the United States interests around the world as well.
PIERRE THOMAS (ABC NEWS)
(Voiceover) To deal with those threats, Mueller has radically re-structured the FBI, tripling the number of agents designated to fight terrorism. Intelligence analysts and linguists have nearly doubled. Before 9/11, Bureau leaders ignored the warning from their own agents about suspected Islamic radicals learning to fly planes. Today, every lead is run down.
ATTORNEY GENERAL ALBERTO GONZALES (UNITED STATES)
We've taken a lot of, of measures to ensure that those mistakes do not occur. And I think we've, we've, we've taken steps to make it much more difficult for the enemy to hurt America.
PIERRE THOMAS (ABC NEWS)
(Voiceover) But former FBI counterterrorism investigator, Jack Cloonan fears, agents are overworked and micro-managed.
JACK CLOONAN (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) Everything you do is second-guessed. If you spend all your time writing paper and spending all your time answering questions and you're not out there building the informant network, the public is at jeopardy.
PIERRE THOMAS (ABC NEWS)
(Voiceover) There are other challenges for the FBI. The agency is racing to update its technology. Many computer systems are online, but the bureau spent $170 million for a database that did not work.
SENATOR CHARLES GRASSLEY (REPUBLICAN
Terrorists have better equipment, better technology than our own government has and they can run circles around us.
PIERRE THOMAS (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) If you had to give them a grade, A through F, what would you give them?
SENATOR CHARLES GRASSLEY (REPUBLICAN
C minus and maybe five years ago, I would have given them a D.
ROBERT MUELLER (FBI DIRECTOR)
Every one of the suggestions were made for improvement of the FBI, we have pursued and followed up on.
PIERRE THOMAS (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) What say you to them, when they say change isn't coming fast enough?
ROBERT MUELLER (FBI DIRECTOR)
I'll be the first one to say, we still got a ways to go. But we've made remarkable strides in protecting the American public since September 11th.
PIERRE THOMAS (ABC NEWS)
(Voiceover) But everyone admits our enemies are as committed and as dangerous as ever.
JACK CLOONAN (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) This is a movement as it's a philosophy. This is a critical juncture in history. It's not just an organization we're fighting. There are thousands of people, not hundreds, and perhaps millions, who feel that the United States is their enemy. They will strike. There's no question about it.
PIERRE THOMAS (ABC NEWS)
(Voiceover) The question is, when they do, will we be ready?
CHARLES GIBSON (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) Intelligence is critical. For all the screening machines, cameras, helicopters, and terrorism centers, good intelligence and interpretation of that intelligence beats them all. Joining us now, the current FBI spokesman and former ABC News correspondent, John Miller. And former White House counterterrorism chief, Richard Clarke who is now an ABC News consultant. Both, you may remember, were featured in that controversial ABC docudrama about 9/11. And as I said earlier, the movie is not our focus in this hour. But we are interested in what you think about the movie. And we hope you'll post your comments on our website. Dick has some very definite thoughts about the film, which are there at Abcnews.com.
GRAPHICS: ABCNEWS.COM
CHARLES GIBSON (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) And that's where you can post your thoughts. But let me talk to you both. And, and John Miller, let me start me with you. There has been no attack for the last five years. Have we been lucky or are we good?
JOHN MILLER (ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
Well, I think, as the director likes to say, you make your own luck, you make your own luck. The harder you work, the luckier you get. But I think it's more important to note that in the past 12 months, not the five years since September 11th, but in the last year alone, leveraging intelligence, working with local law enforcement partners, working with international partners, we have stopped five terrorist attacks in the planning stages for execution on US soil. The case in Torrance, California, targeting locations in Los Angeles, the Atlanta individuals looking to target locations in Washington, DC, who were connected to the terrorist plot in Canada, and individuals overseas and other countries.
JOHN MILLER (ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
In Miami, that self-style group trying to plot attacks on US soil and looking to make contact with al Qaeda. A plot against the path trains under the tunnels in New York City as well as working with our colleagues in Canada and Great Britain, of course, on that latest plot involving planes. That shows two things. One, that shows there is a very high level of tempo in terms of the enemy's work, including homegrown cells and that we're doing a lot of things right.
CHARLES GIBSON (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) So, Dick Clarke, if the attack had come, if one of those attacks that John mentioned had been successful, we'd be blaming the President. The fact that the attacks haven't come, should we give him the credit?
RICHARD CLARKE (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) Well, we should give the President and the entire bureaucracy some credit. But the thing is, we shouldn't rest on our laurels. As long as there are people out there, thousands of them, tens of thousands of them, who wanna kill Americans and who are, in fact, are willing to die in the process, as long as we have vulnerabilities here, like the subways, like the container ships, the chemical plants, that we haven't fixed. If you have add up intent of the bad guys and vulnerability of our own people, eventually, there will be another attack.
CHARLES GIBSON (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) I was struck by the tape released by the number two man in al Qaeda today, al-Zawahiri. And he said, the next attacks will be in Persian Gulf nations, or in Israel. Is that because they wanna go there or is it because the US is something of a hardened target now?
RICHARD CLARKE (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) Well, I think what he says really doesn't matter because I'm not sure he's running an organization anymore. Al Qaeda has changed from being a hierarchical organization, as it on September 11th, to being as John just said, a bunch of self-starters, spontaneous cells in England, in Germany, and elsewhere. And about a dozen groups around the world that are kind of franchises of the old al Qaeda. So it's a movement. It's a philosophy. And as many times as you arrest them, there gonna be more of them.
CHARLES GIBSON (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) Let me get a quick answer from you both, because you were both involved for so long before 2001 in following terrorism. John, you, as are a reporter, Dick you as a counterterrorism official. And we always talk about failure of imagination. But John, were your surprised on this day, five years ago?
JOHN MILLER (ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
I was surprised at the scale of it. I really felt that we were gonna get hit somewhere. I wasn't expecting US soil. And I certainly wasn't expecting anything that large or creative. I don't think anybody was.
CHARLES GIBSON (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) And Dick?
RICHARD CLARKE (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) No. I think we knew something was coming. We had been saying it for months. We thought it could be in the United States. There wasn't a failure of imagination. There was a failure of implementation.
CHARLES GIBSON (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) Is there any failure of imagination now or at least if we can't prevent it, have we thought of everything?
RICHARD CLARKE (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) I think we have thought of too much. The pendulum has swung to the other extreme. We now have a thousand scenarios. And we need to have priorities and most importantly, we need to fix things.
CHARLES GIBSON (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) And John, a quick response to that?
JOHN MILLER (ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
I am always impressed every day I come to work at the imagination and creativity, the things they are looking at and thinking of and gaming. I think, we're in the right direction. But I gotta echo what Dick said. We can't rest on our laurels. The idea that we're preventing them doesn't mean that there isn't one that will fly under the radar screen, or some self-starters that will get by. We've learned that from the Israelis and the Brits, who have had that experience themselves. Even though they do very well.
CHARLES GIBSON (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) John Miller, thanks ever so much. Dick Clarke, as always, thank you as well. And we'll be back in a moment.