Central Intelligence Agency's Foreign Intelligence example essay topic

On September 11 2001, a blow to the solidarity and security of our nation occurred the likes that it had not felt in over fifty years. There is not an American alive that will ever forget the tragedy that happened, all of us that can remember that day will always know exactly where and what we were doing when it happen. I was a Intelligence Analyst for the United States Marine Corps sitting at my desk watch the events unfold, all I could think of is how could this happen, and could we have prevented it. Being part of the Intelligence community it struck deep at the heart of what we do, if our job was done right we may have prevented it. Could we have? is the question that will be debated for years, was it the numerous agencies fault for overlooking signs and threats, or the bureaucratic layers and non-sense that tied the agencies down not allowing them to complete their mission. The national as a whole missed a lot of the warning signs; the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, the attack on the USS Cole, and the bombing of the Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.

All of those should have woke us up but it took the destruction of an icon of the United State for the population to see there was a problem. On September 11, the four concentric circles of American security failed: the Central Intelligence Agency's foreign intelligence together with the State Department visa screening; the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Immigration and Naturalization Service's domestic security, and the Federal Aviation Administration's airport security. The FBI had no procedure for disseminating useful information for analysis within its organization let alone to outside agencies (Cohen). The CIA also created a major lapse in intelligence reporting, when it failed to tell the FBI about movements of terror suspects (Shuger). The FAA allowed the hiring of substandard security personnel, succumbing to ACLU pressure the FAA waived criminal record checks of security personnel (Cohen). The INS failed on several levels when the mastermind of the Trade Center bombing, Ramzi Yusuf, entered the U.S. with a false passport, he was caught by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, but was released because of a lacked space in the local holding facility.

The bureaucracy that helped aid the lapses in the intelligence cycle, that can be layed at the feet of many different individuals. Starting with an 1976 executive order bans assassinations of foreign leaders, and the killing of foreign national without a presidential order called a "lethal finding", in effect (Thomas). With agencies tied down by politicians the ability to "eliminate" a problem before it gets out of hand becomes very difficult. In 1995 the guidelines promulgated by then-Director of Central Intelligence John Deutsch, prohibited the engagement of foreign intelligence informants who may have previously been involved in human rights violations (Cohen). The FBI leadership has also had a hand in the problem of intelligence gathering, according to the reforms recently announced by FBI Director Robert Mueller, there will be more coordination between the Bureau and the CIA-but in Washington.

Contacts between street agents and local CIA agents that are not explicitly approved by FBI HQ in Washington are still frowned upon (Shuger). Finally are the pieces of intelligence that slipped through the cracks do to the delay in the intelligence cycle. For example are the collected transmissions that point toward something happening around 9/11 did not reach the proper people till after the attacks. Those reports include intercepted messages with phrases like "There is a big thing coming,"They " re going to pay the price" and "We " re ready to go". In the bureaucracy of spying, 24-hour or 48-hour time lags are not unusual (Thomas). Turf battles, lack of cultural and linguistic skills, and "bureaucratic stupidity" all contributed to a historic failure of the U.S. security's three circles of defense.

The price we paid was huge. (Cohen). There are many problems in the current system that needs to be solved. Agencies need to encourage lateral communication, to allow for better distribution of intelligence data (Shuger).

Bibliography

1. Reinventing Counterterrorism: More lessons from the 9/11 warnings scandal. By Scott Shuger web 2. The Road to Sept. 11 By Even Thomas web 3. Bureaucratic Failure: How things went as wrong as they did. By Ariel Cohen web.