Written Statement
for the Record of the
Director of Central Intelligence
Before the
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
April 14, 2004
I welcome the opportunity to appear before the Commission and the American
people to address the performance of the Intelligence Community in the
period leading up to
September 11, 2001. First, some context.
By the mid-1990s the Intelligence Community was operating with significant
erosion in resources and people and was unable to keep pace with technological
change. When I became DCI, I found a Community and a CIA whose dollars
were declining and whose expertise was ebbing.
- We lost close to 25 percent of our people and billions of dollars
in capital investment.
- The pace of technological change and a $3 trillion telecommunications
revolution challenged the National Security Agencys ability
to keep up with the increasing volume and velocity of modern communications.
- The infrastructure to recruit, train, and sustain officers for our
clandestine servicesthe nations human intelligence capabilitywas
in disarray.
- We were not hiring new analysts, emphasizing the importance of expertise,
or giving analysts the tools they needed.
I also found that the threats to the nation had not declined or even
stabilized, but had grown more complex and dangerous.
The rebuilding of the Intelligence Community across the board became
my highest priority.
- We had to invest in the transformation and rebuilding of NSA to
attack the modern communications technology that the terrorists and
other high priority targets were using.
- We had to invest in a future imagery architecture to replace aging
satellites.
- We had to overhaul our recruitment, training, and deployment strategy
to rebuild our human intelligence critical to penetrating terrorist
cells.
- We had to invest in our people by recruiting, training, and equipping
the best analytical talent we could find.
- And while we were rebuilding across the board, we ensured that investments
in counterterrorism continued to grow while other priorities either
stayed flat or were reduced.
Finally, we knew that our information systems were becoming obsolescent
during the greatest information technology change in our lifetimes.
We were missing opportunities to gather and fuse data. We recognized
the technical problem well before 9/11 and took steps to solve it.
- I challenged the Intelligence Community to do better in my 1999
Strategic Intent for the Intelligence Community. A cornerstone
of this strategy was information sharing.
- The Intelligence Community Chief Information Officer began immediately
to build a Community information infrastructure integrated across
agencies and with systems that are interoperable.
While we were doing all this, terrorism was not the only national security
issue we had to worry about. At no point during this period did we have
the luxury to put all our resources against terrorism alone. As you
know well, there was intense interest in such threats as:
- Chinas military buildup and the threat to Taiwan,
- North Koreas nuclear capability,
- The prospect for war between India and Pakistan, and
- Our support to combat operations in the Balkans.
Building our overall capabilities would be instrumental in how we positioned
ourselves against al-Qaida and its terrorist organizations that
represented a worldwide network in 68 countries and operated out of
a sanctuary in Afghanistan.
We also needed an integrated operations and collection plan against
al-Qaida. We had one. I have previously testified about the 1999
strategy that we called simply, The Plan. The Plan required
that collection disciplines be integrated to support worldwide collection
and disruption and penetration operations inside Afghanistan and other
terrorist sanctuaries. CIAs Counterterrorist Center, CTC, was
our operational focus.
In 1998, after the East Africa bombings, I directed the Assistant Director
of Central Intelligence for Collection to ensure that all elements of
the Intelligence Community had the right assets focused on the right
problem with respect to al-Qaida and Bin Ladin. He convened frequent
meetings of the most senior collection specialists in the Community
to develop a comprehensive approach to support the Counterterrorist
Centers operations against Bin Ladin.
He told me that despite progress, we needed a sustained, longer-term
effort if the Community was to penetrate deeply into the Afghanistan
sanctuary. We established an integrated Community collection cell focused
on tracking al-Qaida leaders and on identifying al-Qaida
facilities and activities in Afghanistan. The cell, which met daily,
included analysts and operations officers from CIA, imagery officers
from NGA, and SIGINT officers from NSA.
We used these sessions to drive signals and imagery collection against
al-Qaida and to build innovative capabilities to target Bin Ladin
and the al-Qaida organization.
- We moved a satellite to increase our coverage of Afghanistan. CIA
and NSA designed and deployed a clandestine collection system inside
Afghanistan. NGA intensified its efforts across Afghanistan and more
imagery analysts were moved to cover al-Qaida. NGA gave the
highest priority to al-Qaida targets in the intense daily competition
for overhead imagery resources.
- We established an integrated Community collection cell that focused
on tracking al-Qaida leaders and on identifying and characterizing
al-Qaida facilities and activities in Afghanistan.
- When Predator began flying in the summer of 2000, we operated it
in a fused, all source environment within the Counterterrorist Center.
All of this collection recognized the primacy of human and technical
penetration of al-Qaidas leadership and network and the
necessity to get inside its sanctuary in Afghanistan. This integration
was the context of the plan we put into place in 1999.
- Between 1999 and 2001, our human agent base against the terrorist
target grew by over 50 percent. We ran over 70 sources and sub-sources,
25 of whom operated inside Afghanistan.
- We received information from eight separate Afghan tribal networks.
- We forged strategic relationships, consistent with our plan, with
liaison services that, because of their regional access and profile,
could enhance our reach. They ran their own agents into Afghanistan
and around the world in response to our al-Qaida-specific tasking.
- The terrorist training camps in Afghanistan were critical targets
for penetration. Therefore CIA undertook unilateral and liaison programs
to identify individuals to insert directly into the al-Qaida
training program.
The period from early 2000 to September 2001 also was characterized
by an important increase in our unilateral capability. Almost one half
of the assets and programs in place in Afghanistan on September 11 were
developed in the preceding 18 months.
By September 11, 2001, a map would show that these collection programs
and human networks were operating throughout Afghanistan. This array
meant that when the military campaign to topple the Taliban and destroy
al-Qaida began that October, we were already on the ground supporting
it with a substantial body of information and a large stable of assets.
Let me say something about our analytical work. The record before 9/11
already showed a large number of very specific reports that represented
significant strategic intelligence analysis on Bin Ladin, al-Qaida,
and Islamic extremism. Senior policymakers were well informed of the
terrorist threat by:
- National Intelligence Estimates on the foreign terrorist threat
in the United States,
- Assessments of Bin Ladins quest for a WMD capability,
- Analysis of the role of Islamic financial institutions in financing
extremist movements,
- Analysis of the key shift in the Bin Ladin threat from one aimed
at US forces in Saudi Arabia to US interests worldwide,
- Analysis of Bin Ladins command of a global terrorist network,
and
- Assessments of the critical role played by Afghanistan in international
terrorism.
Our analysis got to the policymakers in many forms, including daily
current intelligence, medium-term assessments, Community papers, and
National Estimates. And it was available to the most senior policymakers.
- The analysis of the seriousness of the al-Qaida threat was
a feature of five major Memorandums of Notification that underpinned
covert action programs.
- Analysis was presented and discussed in the Counterterrorism Security
Group chaired by the NSC, which was the main point of action for formulating
policy responses to the terrorist threat.
- In my annual public worldwide threat briefings here on Capitol Hill,
I identified terrorism as one of the top three challenges facing the
country every year since becoming DCI, and every year since 1999 I
have highlighted Bin Ladin as the chief threat to US security.
Assessing Our Performance
The intelligence we provided to our senior policymakers about the threat
al-Qaida posed, its leadership, its operational span across over
60 countries, and the use of Afghanistan as a sanctuary was clear and
direct. Warning was well understoodeven if the timing and method
of the attacks were not.
- The Intelligence Community had the right strategy and was making
the right investments to position itself for the future and against
al-Qaida specifically.
- We made good progress across intelligence disciplines in attacking
al-Qaida. Disruptions, renditions, and sensitive collection
activities no doubt saved lives.
- However, we never penetrated the 9/11 plot. While we positioned
ourselves very well with extensive human and technical penetrations
to facilitate the takedown of the Afghan sanctuary, we did not discern
the specific 9/11 operational plot.
We made mistakes. Our failure to watchlist al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar
in a timely manneror the FBIs inability to find them in
the narrow window of time afforded themshowed systemic weaknesses
and the lack of redundancy.
- There were at least four separate terrorist identity databases at
State, CIA, Department of Defense, and FBI. None were interoperable
or broadly accessible.
- There were dozens of watchlists, many haphazardly maintained.
- There were legal impediments to cooperation across the continuum
of criminal and intelligence operations. It was not a secret, we all
understood it, but little action was taken by anyone to create a common
arena of criminal and intelligence data that we all could access.
But most profoundly we lacked a government wide capability to integrate
foreign and domestic knowledge, data, operations, and analysis.
Warning is not good enough without the structure to put it into action.
- We all understood Bin Ladins intent to strike the homeland
but were unable to translate this knowledge into an effective defense
of the country.
- Doing so would have complicated the terrorists' calculation of the
difficulty in succeeding in a vast open society that was, in effect,
unprotected on September 11.
During periods of heightened threat, we undertook smart, disciplined
actions, but ultimately all of us must acknowledge that we did not have
the data, the span of control, the redundancy, the fusion, or the laws
in place to give us the chance to compensate for the mistakes that will
be made in any human endeavor. This is not a clinical excuse3,000
people died. In the end, one thing is clear. No matter how hard we
worked -- or how desperately we tried -- it was not enough . The victims
and the families of 9/11 deserve better.
Let me now describe some of the changes we have made since the 9/11
attacks.
On the terrorism issue, the crucial importance of sharing data was
greatly assisted by the Patriot Act. It also is being addressed with
the creation of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, TTIC. TTIC
is capturing in one place data available in FBI and CIA operational
files and data from domestic agencies and the foreign intelligence community.
You will hear more about TTIC later today from its Director. For the
first time we are bringing together in one place intelligence databases
and other terrorist threat-related information spanning the intelligence,
law enforcement, homeland security, diplomatic, and military communities.
Better warning will result from the integration of data from domestic
and foreign sources as envisioned in TTIC. Yet, warning must be accompanied
by action. The Department of Homeland Security has been established
to take action to protect the homeland. This is an important and necessary
initiative. But there must be a national commitment to sustain and enhance
the capabilities of DHS.
We have taken major strides to achieve a Community that operates more
as a single corporate unit than is commonly understood:
- We have put in place an intelligence requirements system that is
reviewed every six months by the President and the NSC to ensure that
we have the most urgent priorities where they should be. It is more
flexible and precise than any previous system.
- We have tied our requirements system into our budget building process
so that we can begin planning now to get the resources we will need
not only for todays issues but also for those five years or
more over the horizon.
- We now have a means of connecting those priority decisions back
to our two most precious resourcespeople and collection systems.
We regularly check our array of collectors and analysts to ensure
not only that we have covered our most urgent needs, but also that
we have the right collectors and analysts assigned. We have a much
better sense of where our gaps lie and where we can find the resources
to fill them.
- We also have instituted processes by which we can shift collection
and analytical resources on fairly short notice to areas where they
are most needed. We put a mechanism in place to work with senior collection
managers to ensure that we have integrated collection strategies against
the highest threats to our national security.
- We have a Collection Concepts Development Center to study our toughest
analytical issues in order to find innovative ways to collect against
them.
And on the important information technology front, we have in place
a roadmap for building a more information-integrated Intelligence Community.
- Today, Intelligence Community officers around the world can be connected
electronically to each other and to their customers at all security
levels.
As for the future, proposals to reform or reorganize the Intelligence
Community should be considered in the broader context of the mission
of US intelligence. Terrorism, as important as it is to our national
well being, is not the only area of concern for the country or the Intelligence
Community. I would urge the Commission to consider the following principles
as you review management or organization proposals.
We have spent enormous time and energy transforming our collection,
operational and analytic capabilities. The first thing I would say to
the Commission is that the care and nurturing of these capabilities
is absolutely essential.
It will take us another five years of work to have the kind of clandestine
service our country needs. There is a creative, innovative strategy
to get us there that requires sustained commitment and funding. The
same can be said for the National Security Agency, our imagery agency,
and our analytic community. The transformation is well under way, but
our investments in capability must be sustained.
Second, we have created an important paradigm in the way we have made
changes to the foreign intelligence and law enforcement communitiesbeginning
with the Counterterrorist Center and evolving through the creation of
TTICwith the fusion of all-source data in one place against a
critical mission area.
- This approach could serve as a model for the intelligence community
to organize our most critical missions around centers where there
is an emphasis on fusion, the flow of data, and full integration of
analytic and operational capabilities.
Third, in the foreign intelligence arena, aside from the President,
the DCI's most important relationship is with the Secretary of Defense.
Rather than focus on a zero sum game of authorities, the focus should
be on ensuring that the DCI and the Secretary of Defense work together
to guide investments tied to mission.
- Together, these investments have enormous power when they are synchronized.
This is precisely what Don Rumsfeld and I have been trying to do.
Fourth, the DCI has to have an operational and analytical span of control
that allows him or her to inform the President authoritatively about
covert action and other very sensitive activities.
Finally, our Oversight Committees should begin a systematic series
of hearings to examine the world we will face over the next 20-30 years,
the operational end state we want to achieve in terms of structure,
and the statutory changes that may need to be made to achieve these
objectives.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
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