fo b4 commission meeting 2-10-04 fdr- tab 3 entire contents- memo from fenner- the threat- defining...

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THE THREAT: DEFINING THE PROBLEMTerrorism is not the enemy, terrorism is a tactic.1Lorry M. Fenner

The US government and military have not yet fully transitioned from Cold War andIndustrial Age thinking and postures to face Information Age, transnational threatseffectively. Catastrophic terrorist attacks are not the only significant challenges we face,but the attacks of September 11, 2001 have shown us in dramatic terms that we can nolonger adjust gradually to globalization and the new era. We must move much morerapidly to posture and equip our people, our government and the intelligencecommunityto combat this challenge as well as other transnational challenges (those known andthose not yet anticipated).Hypothesis: The Intelligence Community (1C) and policy makers did not understandthe threat to US national security in the late 1990s. We focused too narrowly on UsamaBin Laden (UBL), and then incrementally enlarged that focus to al Qa'ida seniorleadership (AQSL). The narrow focus and ad hoc changes made creating acomprehensive and appropriate USGovernment (USG) strategy difficult. This, in turn,made the development of an effective intelligence strategy nearly impossible. Since9/11 ourfocus haschanged. Now it is too broad - a global war on terrorism (GWOT).2Our strategy must be grander than one that only addresses a tactic; terrorism.Although others reject this notion, we posit that the threat is ideological -violent Islamicextremism. We do not posit a "clash of civilizations", however whether our adversary isone group, al Qa'ida, or a network of groups, we must address this ideology, and wemust analyze the adversary's goals and strategy.3 Only then can we truly understandwhy the US is a target. Only then can we design a strategy or set of strategies witheffective campaign plans and tactics to defeat our adversaries.4

First, this paper posits our adversary's strategy including notional "ends, ways,and means." Next, is a review of the security environment and terrorism and theintelligence attempts to assess and respond to these. While we had a general NationalIntelligence Estimate (NIE) and an update, in the absence of a comprehensiveassessment specifically of al Qa'ida, the Counterterrorism Center worked from anarrow, DCI approved "plan". The paper ends with a call for an appropriate assessmentof the threat and proposes possibilities that would bring us closer to being able todesign an effective strategy.

1 Many books have been written about the threat, terrorism, and strategy. This is not meant to bea comprehensive review or overview, but a thumbnail sketch of our framework for analysis.2 Jeffrey Record, "Bounding the Global War on Terrorism," Strategic Studies Institute, December2003.3 Bard O'Neill, Insurgency & Terrorism: Inside Modern RevolutionaryWarfare, Brassey's Inc.,Washington, 1990. O'Neill provides a framework for analysis.4 Combating Terrorism in a Globalized World, National War College, May 2002 is one example ofan analysis of a "pansurgency" and designing ends, ways and means to respond.

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Ends. Some do not agree with the notion that we can use an analogy to InternationalCommunism and the Cold War to analyze our current problem.5 Although ouradversaries do not now have a national base like the Soviet Union or China, we canmake a useful if not perfect comparison to communist insurgencies in their movementphase. This challenge is "an international"; Al Qa'ida and its affiliates (GAI, EIJ, ASG,etc.) form a larger, world-wide group that has loyalty to a movement. UBL's February1998 fatwa announced the formation of the "World Islamic Front for Jihad Against theJews and Crusaders" and calls for attacks to continue until Jerusalem and Mecca are"liberated" from the United States and its allies and US troops "move out of all the landsof Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim." Their goals are explicit; theywant to claim nation-states as bases with clients, proxies and possibly a bloc. Theircollective strategy is long term, attritional and, possibly, annihilationist (at least towardsChristians and Jews in their regimes and regions). Their enemies include secularistArabs, moderate Muslims, and leaders of Muslim majority states who do not support.As they seek to overthrow the current world order, first they want the United States andother non-Muslim powers out of the states they wish to claim. Next, they want Islamicregimes as neighbors; Israel must be destroyed. Finally, they want to emasculateinternational organizations and disrupt non-Muslim states worldwide (the US, Canada,Australia, other western democracies, Russia) so they will never be a threat to theirextremist regimes or their people in the future.Ways. Our adversary has taken the strategic offensive with terrorist acts worldwide,even while they entice us to challenge their strong, tactical defensive stance with hit-and-run attacks in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. A campaign of widely separated,shifting, surprise attacks strategically and tactically gives them the initiative. But this isnot the whole of it. Terrorism is only one tool or tactic. Among other tools, they usediplomacy, public diplomacy/propaganda and educational programs/support, economicsupport for like-minded groups or opportunistic allies, and efforts to undermine othercultures.6A lot of paper and ink is spent on this problem. While we have found many alertsof possible attacks; many intelligence reports of terrorist activities and personalities; andmany assessments of terrorist leaders' intentions and goals; we do not find evidencethat our 1C has conducted a comprehensive analysis of our adversaries' as part of apansurgency or ideological movement nor of their strategy. While the 1995 Nationalintelligence Estimate (NIE) and 1997 update assessed many things correctly, neithertook a broader view of our adversary. In addition, even after the 1998 East AfricaEmbassy bombings and the two year limit of the 1997 update, the 1C failed to updatethe Estimate even as our understanding of UBL and al Qa'ida was changing. Even asthe 1C gained an understanding that UBL championed an ideology that was inimical toour interests, called for worldwide jihad against American civilians and others, and thatparticipated in planning strategy and operations, our evidence so far shows theCommunity only communicated this new understanding to policy makers in piecemealfashion. The large numbers of documents the 1C produced did not suffice to capture the5 Record.6 There is evidence that al Qa'ida and affiliates make money from the drug trade; and that theleadership has recognized the additional benefits of fosteringa drug culture.

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attention of decision-makers. Policy makers' attention would have been necessary tocause them to mandate an integrated and comprehensive government strategy tocombat the larger phenomenon of a global, violent, extremist Islamic movement. Theirattention would have been necessary to insure that such a strategy was implementedquickly and with energy and efficiency. In the midst of other valid high priorities (therewere many reports produced during this same period on Russia, China, Weapons ofMass Destruction, Proliferation, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, etc.), the signal to noise ratioon UBL and al Qa'ida was badly skewed in favor of noise.Means. UBL has his family finances and legitimate financial market activity as well asgaining resources through some Islamic charities. Al Qa'ida uses legitimate andcriminal markets to gain as well. The movement is able to recruit not just the desperateand destitute, but also the well-educated, the scientists and engineers and medicaldoctors, the middle-class and well off (many middle-class young men have fewprospects for viable professional or political careers in their societies). Many of thelatter bring monetary as well as intellectual capital to the fight. UBL and his cohort havetrained thousands of mujahedin. They are able to use and ally with rogue regimes andnon-Islamic terrorist organizations as proxies and affiliates.We need a comprehensive assessment of how and who they recruit if we are tobe able to counter them successfully. While we target the "vanguard" or leaders, wemust recognize that they are in many ways quite different from the "workers" and"farmers" who commit suicide or act as facilitators. The movement can afford to lose19/3000 in ratios for suicides, but they will still need a mass of followers to move to thenext constructive phases of their strategy. The organization needs these footsoldiers ifit is to graduate into a mass movement and achieve its larger goals. We need to preventthat. We also need to prevent other groups and proxies from joining, or split thosealready joined apart which are necessary to achieve their larger goals.As our National Security Strategy (NSS), September 2002, and our NationalStrategy for Combating Terrorism (NSCT), February 2003, recognize, we must fight "awar of ideas" and win the "minds and hearts", but we did not, and have not yet,articulated the threat as an ideology with a mass of followers [or an aim to build such amovement/pansurgency] and our current strategy seeks to transform theinternational/transnational warriors back into state confined criminals who can becountered by national law enforcement.The Security Environment: The global environment is increasingly complex andchanges at an ever increasing rate. While state actors may continue to threaten USnational security with both nuclear and conventional arms, none are assessed today ashaving both the capability and intent to threaten us globally or at home. US Intelligencemust dedicate some attention on emerging threats and opportunities relative to stateactors and a number of international challenges such as mass migrations, failed andfailing states, extreme poverty, health emergencies and natural disasters. On the otherhand, violent Islamic extremists have the will and capacity to inflict enormous damageon the US and our interests at home and abroad. The information revolution andglobalization of economics and travel, along with the openness of democratic nations,allow non-state actors to operate transnational^ with unprecedented ease. These



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phenomena have erased the domestic/foreign divide which has been an organizingprinciple of US national security and law enforcement for many years. In order torespond and reform appropriately, in order to organize our structures and processeseffectively, we have to understand the threats and opportunities of the 21st Century.7We address only one here.Terrorism: Terrorism is a very old tactic used by state and non-state entitiessomecriminal and some motivated by powerlust or ideology. It is used predominantly bythose who are not as powerful militarily and technologically as their adversaries, i.e.insurgents. Because terrorist targets can include civilians and non-combatants, it hasover the years been criminalized or outlawed by governments and internationalprotocols. Still, there are many and varied specific definitions of terrorism. The 2002NSS says, "The enemy is terrorism - premeditated, politically motivated violenceperpetrated against innocents." Bard O'Neill explains that "[i]nsurgent terrorism ispurposeful, rather then mindless, violence because terrorists seek to achieve specificlong-term, intermediate, and short-term goals. The longer term goal is, of course, tochange the political community, political system, authorities, or policies. Theintermediate goal of terrorism is not so much the desire to deplete the government'sphysical resources as it is to erode its psychological support by instilling fear intoofficials and their domestic and international supporters."8 O'Neill continues that"though the general purpose of terrorism has been to alter the behavior and attitudes ofspecific groups, this has not excluded the simultaneous pursuit of one or moreproximate objectives...." Jane Holl posits that even the 9/11 attacks on the UnitedStates were aimed at the Saudi regime.9 By itself, terrorism is rarely successful in thelong term. In the short term, if governments respond too weakly, or instead too violentlyor indiscriminantly, populations might side with terrorists creating a popular revolution.If the government provides adequate security and accomplishes needed reforms, it willgain favor with the population and take motivating grievances away from the terrorists.

Because the 1C (primarily the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the DCI'sCounterterrorism Center (CTC)), and therefore the USG, identified the threat to thenation's security as terrorism - even though terrorism is merely a tactic - our responsehas been skewed. What we required was for the 1C to go beyond notice and warningthat there was a growing use of this tactic by a variety of groups, to a sharper and morecomprehensive assessment of these groups' underlying motivations and intentions. Wehave responded intuitively, with all the attendant tendencies to mirror-image the threat,instead of intellectually to this challenge. According to many we have interviewed, the1C was too busy responding to multiple complex and conflicting challenges in the 1990sfrom the wars in Iraq and Kosovo to watching China, Iran and North Korea closely to thehunt for proliferators and WMD. According to a senior UBL/al Qa'ida analyst at the Joint7 Discussions with Gordon Lederman, Lloyd Salvetti, and Kevin Scheid (9/11 Intelligence TaskForce).8 O'Neill, pp.24-25. O'Neill acknowledges others in defining insurgency as "a struggle between anonruling group and the ruling authorities in which the nonruling group consciously usespoliticalresources (e.g., organizational expertise, propaganda, and demonstrations) and violence todestroy, reformulate, or sustain the basis of legitimacy of one or more aspects of politics," p.13.9 Staff Director for the Carnegie Commission on the Causes of Violent Conflict. Currently the UNAssistant Secretary General for Mission Support, Department of Peacekeeping.



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Intelligence Task Force-Counter-Terrorism (JITF-CT) of the Defense IntelligenceAgency (DIA) terrorism was too dynamic a target for an in-depth assessment to beuseful. According to many at CIA, a well-considered assessment and strategy, as wellas stronger and more consistent management, was inimical to their needed creativityand flexibility.Management would certainly be confounded by the problematic structure. Therewas no National Intelligence Officer (NIO) for CT or Islamic Extremism because theCTC was meant to serve this function. And the NIO for Warning was not supposed toengage on terrorism or the groups that were increasingly using it because the CTC wasmeant to serve this function through its Interagency Intelligence Committee onTerrorism (IICT), Community Counter-terrorism Board (CCB), and the TerrorismWarning Group (TWO). But the DCI and CIA/DDO watched, and the DDI stood by, asthe CTC focused on operations and special activities instead of marshaling andintegrating all the 1C resources to serve a broader strategy against a bigger anddifferent threat than a terrorist financier and a tactic.The Counter-terrorism NIEs: The widely-coordinated and disseminated 1995 NationalIntelligence Estimate (NIE) discussed the issue of terrorism and warned of conningdomestic attacks from non-state sponsored, loosely networked, Islamic extremists butstrangely claimed they were "non-ideological." It covers many avenues we would havewanted to see in such a document and warns that while intelligence can providestrategic warning, it will be weak on tactical warning. By the time of the 1997 Update,the intelligence community recognized the growing danger from terrorism but onlyidentified UBL as a terrorist financier who operated abroad. The NSS of these yearsaddressed terrorism similarly, which makes sense because national strategies shouldbe based on challenges and opportunities identified by our nation's best intelligence.The 1999 National Security Strategy barely mentions terrorism and calls on theintelligence community merely to attempt to warn and, more importantly, rapidly assessculpability after an attack.Without an comprehensive strategic assessment or NIE: Between 1995 and 2001we correctly identified groups that used terrorism and had global reach; those that wereof greatest danger to Americans and American interests. But we did not return to our1995 and 1997 Estimates to revise our assessments. While we were finding that inaddition to Hezbollah, the group al Qa'ida and its affiliates meant to do us great harm,we did not have a national estimate of them specifically - their goals and theirstrategies. We focused on their tactics and their leadership. While this focus has ledthe 1C to be relatively successful in supporting the pursuit of leadership targets, it hasprevented the 1C from tackling the real enemy operationally and strategically. The lackof an strategic assessment that would capture the attention of policymakers and spurthem to action first resulted in there being no appropriate USG strategy. We understandthere was a draft NIE being prepared in the spring of 2001 that was finally completed in2002 but we have not yet seen it (since it is "outside our scope"). And now we have a2002 NSS and a 2003 NSCT that are helpful but still miss the mark. We have been toldthat the CTC has a new strategy, but it has not yet been approved by the DCI, and wehave not been afforded a copy. It will be interesting to see how the threat is articulated.



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It presumably is built on the NSS and NSCT which are both problematic. Still, it iscritical that it address the entire 1C and the links to the National Strategy for HomelandSecurity and other USG and state and local intelligence and law enforcement supportfor decision makers.The DCI's Plan: Until 2004, according to Joint Inquiry and our own interviews, CTCwas working from "a Plan." It was not a CIA plan and it was not an 1C plan, much lesswas it a USG strategy. It focused on a tactic. It focused on terrorism as a crime andUBL and his senior lieutenants as criminals. It focused overseas where these particularcriminals lived, trained, and operated before 9/11 (leaving aside for the moment thequestion of their involvement in the first World Trade Center (WTC) bombing in 1993).Even the FBI, which had responsibility for domestic intelligence and criminalinvestigation on terrorism, was focused overseas on capturing and prosecuting thesecriminals. Relatedly, but not comprehensively or synergistically or in full coordination,the State Department and Department of Treasury pursued stopping state support for oracquiescence to UBL and to contain his finances. Little was done, despite the WTC 93attack or the Ressam Millenium arrest and other warnings of possible domestic attacks,to effectively and appropriately bring in State (consular affairs), Justice (INS, BorderPatrol), airport and port security, the FAA or commercial transportation. UBL and hissenior lieutenants moved, but not that widely (as far as we knew) outside the MiddleEast and South Asia.11 The USG focus was on responding to the catastrophic results ofthe use of WMD or cyber attack in the United States, but besides a "forward defense"(deter, disrupt, render overseas) little was done to consider prevention of them. Further,little if anything was done to consider the psychological and economic effects of a highexplosives attack or numerous smaller attacks on the homeland.12One can look at the many successes of the 1C from 1995 - 2003 in preventing ordelaying terrorist attacks and in capturing terrorist groups' second tier leaders andfunctionaries and from these successes decide that the few attacks that have affectedAmericans are the price of living in the world. In other words, there has been no realfailure. If so, we could judge our approach, even without a USG-wide and IC-widestrategy as a general success to be capitalized on and expanded. On the other hand,one might conclude that we have been extremely lucky (despite our lack of soundmanagement and integrated approach) that these groups have been relatively timid andresource poor. Then we might judge that our structure and approach are reallyineffective and that it is only a matter of time before they attack again. In fact, we might

10 All these Departments and USG agencies had representation on the CTC's IICT andlevied/vetted requirements and warnings.11 The January hearings pointed out that, although individual agencies had some effortsdedicated to terrorist travel, the 1C did not have a comprehensive strategy to track the travel ofleaders overseas and "footsoldiers" to the US and Europe. We see the results of a new CTCoperational approach to doing so in the arrest, over the past two years, of a number of al Qa'ida'ssenior leadership.12 It appears little was done to think of or counter the myriad other possibilities except for one occasionreported on in the Joint Inquiry report. During the Reagan administration INS tried to enlist the assistanceof the FBI to find student visa abusers who were studying in certain sensitive subjects who were fromcountries on the state-sponsors of terrorism list. The FBI was non-responsive.



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reason that we have not experienced more domestic attacks because our adversarieshave concentrated on spectacular and suicide attacks. What if they change their tacticsand decide to attack us at home on a smaller but more continuous basis? We can positthat they would have even more success and we would not at all be prepared to counterthat strategy with our current approach. If they have learned something from the 2001anthrax attacks or the DC area sniper or successful but smaller scale attacks in Israel,we are in deep trouble."The Plan" is not enough: Focusing on encouraging the world to criminalize terrorismis an old requirement and a good one as far as it goes. It is appropriate that we workthis with all the tools of national power with renewed and constant attention. It is notenough.Tracking down criminals for arrest and prosecution is an old requirement and agood one. It is appropriate that law enforcement, the military, and intelligence andspecial activities work this with the help of all the tools of national power with renewedand constant attention. We must also enlist our allies and friends and internationalorganizations; we must help maximize their efforts and leverage them in our ownstrategy. It is not enough.Preventing groups and states that use terrorist tactics from obtaining WMD oradvanced conventional weapons is an old requirement and a good one. It isappropriate that we, our allies and the international community use our best lawenforcement, intelligence, and military capabilities in this effort. It is not enough.Obstructing the flow of money and other material resources to terrorists and theirproxies as well as states who support them is an old requirement and a good one.Again, it is appropriate that we use all the tools of national power and enlist the help ofthe international community for this endeavor. It is not enough.

It is not enough because even though we are finally talking about addressing theroot causes of terrorism, we have not fully addressed the ideologies and strategic goalsof the groups that are increasingly using this tactic. We know why people resort toterrorism - they areeither sadists or revolutionaries or messianic murderers who eitherrelish the harming of the unarmed and unsuspecting, or they believe it is the only meansthey have of gaining their objectives against more powerful adversaries, or they feelthey must kill all those who are not them by whatever means they have. It is notenough to know this.We need a strategic assessment of the threat: Only then can we design acomprehensive and integrated strategy and associated and tailored campaign plans(operational approaches) and appropriate tactics.Outside experts have pointed the way to a framework for this analysis, but our 1Chas been disjointed and focused on operations for so long that strategic analysts havenot stepped back far enough to take the widest view for a truly fulsome Estimate. Suchas estimate should move beyond fighting the last war (aircraft as weapons) and beyondthe necessary attention to WMD and cyber-attack to lower level attacks with "masseffects". Such an estimate must also move beyond our tendency to mirror image ouradversaries and our ego-centric view to assess whether our opponents strategy is reallyfocused on another "center of gravity" and that we are only collateral targets as Jane



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fundamentalist or extreme Islamic governments, can we countenance theircoming to power at all? What if their coming to power within their states wasachieved peacefully and democratically? If so, we would want to send explicitsignals and work to those ends. If not, we need a better answer. If either ofthese two (3 and 4) are correct assessments, why do they attack Americans andAmerica? Because we appear to support the regime they oppose eitherpolitically or economically. When we have a presence we defile their religion. Inother words, they do not attack us because we believe in the rule of law ordemocracy or are irreligious. If this is true, can we countenance withdrawingeconomic or political support, or exiting the territory in question? If not, can wedevelop another constructive way to respond?

(5) They want regional dominance for their political or religious ideology; they wantto destroy Israel and the US out of the Middle East. They want the US andmaybe China and other secularist or non-fundamentalist Muslim regimes out ofSouth Asia, the "Stans", and Asia/Oceania. Europe and the Americas might besafe if politically, ideologically, and economically we could countenance such asituation. In this scenario, they attack America and Americans because wesupport those who are in power in these regions and support regional secularorganizations, not because we believe in the rule of law and democracy, listen topop music and wear revealing clothing.(6) They want global freedom of action at a minimum and world domination at amaximum for a fundamentalist Islamic world order. America and Americans areattacked because we are both the symbol and power behind the existing worldpolitical order, economic order and popular culture, all of which are antitheticaland offensive to radical Islam. Our allies, other democracies and internationalorganizations are attacked as part and parcel of the current secular andpluralistic world order.

Our nation needs an NIE or other special intelligence product that assesseswhich of the above (or combination) is most likely. We continue to shy away fromthe religious identity of our attackers, but if ideology is really the root, we mustname it and devise our strategy accordingly. The threat is ideological. Whether it isone group or a confederation of groups with interests each in their own states, or in theirown region, or in the world, we must address the ideology and their strategy forachieving their goals (and, specifically, why we are their targets). Only then can weplan a strategy or set of strategies with campaign plans and tactics to defeat them.14Only then can we devise a truly comprehensive and integrated intelligence strategy tosupport the President and executive departments (Defense, Homeland Security, State,etc.) to successfully address the threat.

14 There are some psychological assessments or particular leaders and lieutenants of al Qa'idaand affiliates, but we have not yet seen an assessment of UBL's ideological geneaology,schooling, thoughts, writings, etc.

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