On September 11, 2001, at 8.46, an airplane traveling at high speeds carrying 10,000 gallons of jet fuel rammed into the North Tower of the world trade center in lower Manhattan. Minutes later, a second airplane hit the south tower at 9.03 am. Glass smoke and debris exploded everywhere. At 9.37, a third airplane slammed into the pentagon, and at 10.03 on the same morning, a fourth airplane crashed in a field in southern Pennsylvania. It was aimed at the United States Capitol.
On that morning, More than 2000 people died, and property of immeasurable value was destroyed. This plan was orchestrated by 19 Arabs of Islamic extremists from Afghanistan. They had been in the country for more than a year training to be pilots (Frigotto, & Narduzzo, 2017). The threat from Islamic extremists was not new even in the 1990s. They had given prior warnings to kill Americans indiscriminately in large numbers.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The threat grew over the decade. In 1997, the United States intelligence community viewed Osama bin Laden as a financier of terrorism and not a terrorist leader. He declared publicly that his intention was to kill every American because, according to him, they were occupying Islamic places of worship. It is believed that he led the 9/11 attack. In the 1980s, Bin Laden was one of the Muslim volunteers who traveled to Afghanistan to volunteer in the jihad or holy struggle. They defeated the Soviet Union, and Bin Laden eventually formed Al Qaeda to mobilize jihadists globally. He recruited people and promised them victory over foreign masters. By the time the 9/11 plan was being executed, Al Qaeda was an organized group with leaders and objectives. During this time, the intelligence community struggled with the management and analysis of transnational terrorism. Priorities, flat budgets, and uncoordinated leadership resulted in an insufficient response to emerging challenges.
Three years later, in July 2004, the 9/11 Commission Report was released, having been prepared by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States, which was established in November 2002 and was requested by the former president George W. Bush. The report's initial intention was to analyze the country's preparedness in their response to terrorist attacks and provide recommendations to improve the United States' external and internal security. After the Commission's legislation and authorization of the funding, investigations began, exploring the factors, reasons, and facts that led to the 9/11 terrorist attack. The Commission was led by Henry Kissinger and George Mitchell.
The Commission embarked on the journey, and with ten members on boards and a budget of three million dollars, they started finding out the details surrounding the attack and the events leading to the tragedy. They also strived to give recommendations on the response and ways to prevent such a similar attack from occurring. The representatives of the 9/11 victims were involved in the Commission, following up each proceeding, and on March 2003, the first public hearing was held by the Commission in the United States Customs House, whereby the 9/11 survivors narrated their gruesome experiences during the attack and expressed their disappointment in the American Intelligence for allowing the occurrence of such a horrifying attack. Testimonies were also heard from first responders that witnesses the attack, such as the fire department, the department of justice, the department of terrorism and counterterrorism, and the New York City police.
The 9/11 Commission Report proposed that the terrorist attack shocked everyone but did not come as a complete surprise to the American Intelligence as Osama Bin Laden, who was a member of the Islamic Jihadist group, Al-Qaeda had declared his intentions to launch a terrorist attack on the American soil that would cause harm to numerous American citizens (Kean et al., 2004). The report indicated that this had been reported as a threat, and it pointed a blaming finger at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Pentagon, and the National Security Council (NSC) for failing to act accordingly and swiftly in defending the nation against the 9/11 attack, considering that they had a clue of the threat. In the recommendation section, the report stated that the American Intelligence unit should devise strategies to increase security and protect American citizens in the country and abroad from terrorist attacks. The report also suggested that the United States' Intelligence should develop strategies that introduce and maintain diplomacy between the United States and Islamic countries to promote unity and peace.
The 9/11 Commission Report has fueled a lot of reforms on the intelligence community in the past decade and prompted the largest change in the intelligence community since 1947. The first vital change was the introduction of several national security organization, including; the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), the National Counter-Terrorism (NCTC), and the improvement of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Members of the IC. 2020). These organizations have devised ways to share information amongst themselves, enabling partnership in counterterrorism activities.
The United States has also devised strategies to influence diplomacy and create a relationship between the country and Islamic states. This has been made possible by initiation trade initiatives and trade collaborations over the years. After the discovery of porous borders that contributed to the 9/11 attack, the United States has established strategies to strengthen security at the borders. This is made possible by increasing the keenness on security checks at the borders and strict scrutinization of foreigners looking for a visa to enter the country.
The FBI has also undergone a transition that has addressed and improved important structural functions within the organization that allow and encourage the flow of information between the intelligence and law enforcement organizations to improve the effectiveness of counterterrorism. Information sharing has drastically improved since the report's formation, and it enables healthy partnerships between intelligence organizations. The United States has also strengthened their emergency response systems, such as the fire department and the local police units. The government has offered more counterterrorism training to these institutions that enable faster and effective response systems that will allow them to save more individuals and contain the situation more easily in case of another terrorist attack.
The Intelligence community has also introduced brilliant methods of collecting information, such as introducing spies in the terrorist territory. They are supposed to gather Intel on the terrorists, their plans, and ways or information by integrating secretly with the enemy or the villages surrounding them. The government has also developed strategies to educate the public on terrorism attacks. They are taught on how to react in such situations and escape the terrorists.
The 9/11 Commission Report will continue to affect the Intelligence Community in the future. The government and the intelligence community seek to attack terrorists and their organizations with the aim of getting rid of their structures and dismantling the entire unit. The government seeks to devise a way to identify potential terrorists. This has been made possible by conducting thorough background checks on the suspects. Security at the border points has also contributed to this strategy through the introduction of a biometric screening system on the entry points. The government also seeks to promote security by emphasizing the constant checking of identification material on an individual, such as driver's license, passports, and birth certificate.
The government is also planning to develop strategies for the neglected transport system such as trains and buses as the majority of the security funds are channeled to aviation security. The Intelligence Community is also developing ways to disseminate and analyze the information collected in order to identify threats and risks. This will enable the organizations to develop prevention and response strategies. The government is also looking to solve problems within the Intelligence Community, such as lack of funding or the employment of unqualified personnel.
Another incident that has kept the Intelligence Community on vigilance is the threat of the Lackawanna Six. The Lackawanna six is a group of young Yemeni men, five of the six were born and raised in Lackawanna. They attempted a terrorist attack in September 2002 after attending a training camp Al-Farooq, in Afghanistan, where the Al-Qaida radicalized them (Bucci, 2020). The men could hardly pass for terrorist suspects as they had ordinary lives and jobs. However, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents monitored them from the time they arrived from Afghanistan after receiving an anonymous letter from someone in Lackawanna informing them of their training (SATKALMI, 2005).
This enabled the Intelligence community and the government to realize that terrorists are not only from abroad and the cases of domestic terrorism were on the rise, causing the radicalization of young Muslim youth into participating in the holy war/jihad. However, this plan was contained, and The United States Patriot Act contributed to foiling this terror attack because its provisions enabled measures that detected the Lackawanna six suspects. The Act's provision also provided efforts that helped to prosecute these suspects, thus preventing a terror attack on United States soil (Office of the Director of National Intelligence. n.d.).
References
Bucci, S. (2020). 60 Terrorist Plots Since 9/11: Continued Lessons In Domestic Counterterrorism. Retrieved from https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/60-terrorist-plots-911-continued-lessons-domestic-counterterrorism?ac=1
Frigotto, M. L., & Narduzzo, A. (2017). Mindfulness In Action And Time: An Analysis Of 911 Response On September 11, 2001. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2017, No. 1, p. 16915). Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510: Academy of Management.
Kean, T. H., Kojm, C. A., Zelikow, P., Thompson, J. R., Gorton, S., Roemer, T. J., ... & Kerrey, B. The 9/11 Commission Report. 2004. URL: http://govinfo. library. unt. edu/911/report/index. htm .
Members of the IC. (2020). Retrieved October 17 2020, from https://www.dni.gov/index.php/what-we-do/members-of-the-ic
Office of the Director of National Intelligence. (n.d.). USA Patriot Act. https://www.dni.gov/index.php/who-we-are/organizations/ise/ise-archive/ise-additional-resources/2116-usa-patriot-act
SATKALMI, R. (2005). Material Support: The United States v. the Lackawanna Six. Studies In Conflict & Terrorism , 28 (3), 193-199. doi: 10.1080/10576100590928098
