The 9/11 terrorist attacks: A failure of policy not strategic intelligence analysis

Intelligence and National Security

Volumn 26, Issue 2-3, 2011, Pages 182-202

  Marrin, Stephen ^a  

^a BRUNEL UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 79957552997     PISSN: 02684527     EISSN: 17439019     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/02684527.2011.559140     Document Type: Article

References (107)

1. Otherwise known as the 'standard model' of the intersection of analysis and decision.
2. Stephen Marrin, 'Intelligence Analysis and Decisionmaking: Methodological Challenges', in P. Gill, S. Marrin and M. Phythian (eds.) Intelligence Theory: Key Questions and Debates (London: Routledge 2008) pp.131-50.
3. The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (New York: Norton 2004) p.119 (henceforth 9/11 Commission Report).
4. Richard H. Immerman, 'Intelligence and Strategy: Historicizing Psychology, Policy, and Politics', Diplomatic History 32/1 (2008) pp.1-23.
5. Stephen Marrin, 'Intelligence Analysis Theory: Explaining and Predicting Analytic Responsibilities', Intelligence and National Security 22/6 (December 2007) p.830.
6. 9/11 Commission Report, p.340.
7. Ibid., p.100.
8. Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror: Radical Islam's War Against America (New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks 2003) pp.221-22.
9. Ibid., p.228.
10. 9/11 Commission Report, p.101.
11. Richard A. Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror (New York: Free Press 2004) p.135.
12. Benjamin and Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror, p.244.
13. 9/11 Commission Staff Statement No. 11: The Performance of the Intelligence Community (2004), p.4, http://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_statements/staff_statement_11.pdf (accessed 28 February 2010).
14. 9/11 Commission Report, p.342.
15. Ibid., p.342.
16. Ibid., p.128.
17. George Tenet (with Bill Harlow), At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA (New York: Harper Collins 2007) p.122.
18. Ibid., p.130
19. Paul R. Pillar, 'Good Literature and Bad History: The 9/11 Commission's Tale of Strategic Intelligence', Intelligence and National Security 21/6 (2006) p.1026.
20. Daniel Byman, 'Strategic Surprise and the September 11 Attacks', Annual Review of Political Science 8 (2005) p.151.
21. 9/11 Commission Report, pp.342, 349.
22. Benjamin and Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror, p.386.
23. 9/11 Commission Report, pp.342-43.
24. Tenet, At the Center of the Storm, pp.129-30
25. 9/11 Commission Report, p.343.
26. The Bush administration's plan to 'take the fight to the terrorists' and create a more robust counterterrorism policy intended to eliminate Al Qaeda - which was approved on 10 September 2001 - is described in the 9/11 Commission Report, pp.202-6, 213-14, 253.
27. Benjamin and Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror, pp.291-92 (see also pp.290-91, 307).
28. Byman, 'Strategic Surprise and the September 11 Attacks', p.161.
29. 9/11 Commission Report, p.348.
30. Paul Pillar, Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy (Washington: Brookings Institution Press 2001) pp.60, 66.
31. Ibid., p.70.
32. Benjamin and Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror, p.458.
33. Tenet, At the Center of the Storm, p.60.
34. Pillar, Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy, p.60.
35. Benjamin R. Barber, 'Jihad vs. McWorld', The Atlantic Monthly (March 1992) pp.53-63.
36. Stephen Marrin, Unpublished working paper, 13 April 1997.
37. Pillar, Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy, pp.63-64.
38. Benjamin and Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror, p.407.
39. 9/11 Commission Report, p.48.
40. Benjamin and Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror, pp.415-17
41. 9/11 Commission Report, pp.375-78.
42. Tenet, At the Center of the Storm, p.500.
43. Pillar, 'Good Literature and Bad History', p.1037.
44. 9/11 Commission Report, p.348.
45. Ibid., p.349.
46. Pillar, Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy, p.47.
47. Byman, 'Strategic Surprise and the September 11 Attacks', pp.152-53.
48. 9/11 Commission Report, p.348.
49. Benjamin and Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror, p.377
50. 9/11 Commission Report, p.348.
51. 9/11 Commission Report, p.348.
52. Ibid., p.349.
53. Ibid., p.350.
54. Ibid., pp.348-49.
55. For more on military ineffectiveness, see Byman, 'Strategic Surprise and the September 11 Attacks', pp.160-61.
56. Byman, 'Strategic Surprise and the September 11 Attacks', p.153.
57. 9/11 Commission Report, p.349.
58. Ibid., p.350.
59. Benjamin and Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror, p.402.
60. Byman, 'Strategic Surprise and the September 11 Attacks', pp.155-56.
61. 9/11 Commission Report, p.265
62. Byman, 'Strategic Surprise and the September 11 Attacks', p.161.
63. 9/11 Commission Report, p.340.
64. Ibid., p.349.
65. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Staff Statement No. 7: Intelligence and Policy (2004) p.10. This comment was not duplicated in the 9/11 Commission Report.
66. Ibid., p.11.
67. 9/11 Commission Report, p.182.
68. Ibid., p.197.
69. Ibid., p.213.
70. Ibid., p.348.
71. Clarke, Against All Enemies, p.238.
72. 9/11 Commission Report, p.119.
73. Tenet, At the Center of the Storm, p.104.
74. 9/11 Commission Report, p.341.
75. Paul Pillar, ''A Scapegoat is Not a Solution', New York Times, 4 June 2004.
76. Paul Pillar, Personal Communication (email), 21 October 2007.
77. 9/11 Commission Report, pp.342, 560.
78. Pillar, Good Literature and Bad History', p.1030.
79. 9/11 Commission Report, p.341.
80. Tenet, At the Center of the Storm, p.104.
81. Pillar, ''Good Literature and Bad History', p.1027.
82. 9/11 Commission Report, p.343.
83. Central Intelligence Agency, National Estimates: An Assessment of the Product and the Process. Intelligence Monograph (Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, April 1977) p.2. (Thanks to Philip H.J. Davies for bringing this document to my attention.)
84. Ibid., pp.2-3.
85. Even those consumers who valued NIEs found them to be useful for 'their presentation of a disinterested view' rather than their relevance to immediate policy issues.
86. Pillar, Good Literature and Bad History', p.1027.
87. John McLaughlin, ''McLaughlin: NIE is not as decisive as it may seem,' CNN Commentary 10 December 2007, http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/10/mclaughlin.commentary/index.html (accessed 28 February 2010).
88. Richard K. Betts, Enemies of Intelligence: Knowledge and Power in American National Security (New York: Columbia University Press 2007) p.40.
89. 9/11 Commission Report, pp.359-60.
90. Raphael F. Perl, ''National Commission on Terrorism Report: Background and Issues for Congress', CRS Report for Congress RS20598 (6 February 2001) pp.1-2.
91. 9/11 Commission Report, p.343.
92. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Staff Statement No. 7: Intelligence and Policy (2004) p.11. This comment was not duplicated in the 9/11 Commission Report.
93. Byman, ''Strategic Surprise and the September 11 Attacks', p.146, citing Ariel Levite, Intelligence and Strategic Surprises (New York: Columbia University Press 1987) pp.1-3.
94. Levite, Intelligence and Strategic Surprises, pp.151-52.
95. Joshua Rovner, Austin Long and Amy Zegart, 'Correspondence: How Intelligent Is Intelligence Reform?', International Security 30/4 (2006) p.203.
96. Levite, Intelligence and Strategic Surprises, p.146,
97. citing Alexander George and Richard Smoke, Deterrence in American Foreign Policy (New York: Columbia University Press 1974) p.574.
98. Michael Herman, Intelligence Power in Peace and War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1996) p.141.
99. Richard K. Betts, ''Intelligence Warning: Old Problems, New Agendas', Parameters (Spring 1998) p.30.
100. Levite, Intelligence and Strategic Surprises, p.148,
101. citing Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1976) p.376.
102. As Ernest May points out, both the Clinton and Bush administrations ''considered terrorism an important issue but not an urgent one'.
103. Ernest R. May, When Government Writes History', The New Republic (23 May 2005) p.30.
104. Levite, Intelligence and Strategic Surprises, p.148,
105. citing Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1976) p.179.
106. For a similar perspective on the insignificance of intelligence inadequacies in the face of policy failure, as applied to US counter proliferation policy.
107. Ashton B. Carter, ''A Failure of Policy, Not Spying', Washington Post, 3 April 2005, p.B07.