Intelligence Failures: CIA, Law Enforcement and the 9/11 Attack

This essay analyzes the failures and inconsistencies of the CIA and other law enforcement agencies that contributed to the 9/11 attack. The essay explores the pre-9/11 context, highlighting how the US government underestimated the threat posed by al Qaeda and its associates. It examines missed opportunities, such as the failure to track key conspirators and share vital information, as well as policy mistakes that allowed al Qaeda to expand. The essay also discusses the FBI's biases, organizational issues within intelligence agencies, and the lack of a coherent counterterrorism strategy. The conclusion emphasizes the need for strategic efforts to improve US intelligence capabilities and protect civil liberties in the face of evolving threats. The essay draws on various scholarly sources to provide a comprehensive overview of the factors that led to the 9/11 attacks.

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INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS
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1INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS
The 9/11 attack has been seen as an occurrence of exceeding imbalance. The United
States had encountered shocking attacks even before such as the 1950 Chinese violence in
Korea. However, whereas by no means as intimidating as Japan’s act of war, the 9/11 attack
has been in many aspects more shocking as compared to those attacks (Eiran 2016). The
devastating attack was performed by small militant group whereby the resources behind it
mainly have been highly trivial. However, evaluated on a governmental measure, the means
behind it showed great insignificance. The association had been dispatched by an
organization established in one of the most financially deprived, distant as well as least
developed nations in the world. Such an association employed an amalgamation of young
activists and highly educated extremists who could not discover appropriate spaces in their
nations and had been driven by them. However, the 9/11 Commission in its report has
mentioned that the intelligence community and the CIA with fluctuating budgets and
outmoded structure along with bureaucratic opponents had been incompetent in anticipating
the 9/11 attack (Malekos Smith 2018). The following essay will discuss how recurrent
failures and inconsistency of the CIA and other law enforcement agencies resulted in the 9/11
attack.
Before the 9/11 attack, al Qaeda as well as its associates had murdered lesser than 50
Americans, which included the East Africa embassy violence, as well as the Cole attack. The
US government and law enforcement agencies considered these efforts to be serious but not
in the understanding of gathering anything such as the kind of determination which would be
congregated in order to challenge an opponent of the first, second and the third position
(Pastorello and Testa 2017). However, the modest general endeavour exercised to cover
Serbia as well as its plunders in the Balkans in the period from 1995 to 1999 had been the
orders of magnitude which had been more significant than the ones devoted to al Qaeda.

2INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS
However, Reports of 9/11 attack revealed that while the intelligence officials failed to
anticipate the 9/11 attacks, it did not overlook the threat that had been posed by al Qaeda.
In contrary, Gruenewald et al. (2019) has claimed that the failure of the U.S
intelligence interventions to understand the potential threats of fanatic attack after the end of
the Cold War has not been directly deceptive. Moreover, a number of international policy
leaders along with intelligence administrators have argued that the risks of Cold War fallouts
had been impervious, wide ranging and fluid for U.S intelligence to evaluate the likely danger
of terrorism in an efficient manner than they used to do. According to Smith (2017), the
intelligence municipal, especially the CIA performed comparatively well in offering strategic
cautionary regarding likely threat of al Qaeda attack. The distinctiveness of opponent in
addition to the scope of its agendas as well as the associated lethality had been known as well
as communicated in timely approach. According to Durbin (2017), the CIA had initiated its
threatening regarding threat of al Qaeda much prior to the concurrent outbreaks on two US
delegations on 1988 made the threats even more distinct to many onlookers. Pastorello and
Testa (2017) by evaluating the missed opportunities for Intelligence have found that while the
anti-social groups had made numerous mistakes majority of the plotters’ actions had been
overlooked or failed to be detected.
The missed opportunities and failure of the CIA and other law enforcement agencies
were areas where the CIA did not track two vital conspirators, Khalid al-Midhar as well as
Nawaf al-Hazmi and evade them from making any entry into the U.S even after obtaining the
information that they contained U.S documents and had been travelling to the U.S.
Furthermore, the CIA failed to share this data to the FBI in well-timed manner. On the other
hand, while being engaged with Malaysian internal security services, the CIA had conducted
a assembly of important operative majority of them had linkages with the 9/11 attack
(Chermak and Gruenewald 2015). However, due to the out-dated structure of law

3INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS
enforcement agencies they lost the track of the offenders when the meeting was completed.
Meanwhile, Gentry (2016) in their research have found that several policy mistakes of the
U.S policy towards al Qaeda enabled the organization to spread extensively. The U.S policy
had left the subject of terrorist reservation to be unanswered. Studies have revealed that in
Afghanistan, al Qaeda received the allowance of setting up army groups of comparable
activists outside the reach of the U.S and its associates (Fishman 2016). Carnahan,
Kryscynski and Olson (2017) have noted that prior to the 9/11 attack, America lacked a
coherent counterterrorism policy for Pakistan and contained an inexplicit policy in relation to
the Saudi Arabia. Even though Pakistan and Saudi Arabia both had been essential to the
effort against al Qaeda, the U.S lacked comprehensive counterterrorism strategy for both of
these nations. In addition to this, the United States showed high reliance on law enforcement
strategies like trails and custodies in order to combat with al Qaeda prior to the incidence of
the 9/11 attack.
However, eventually the law enforcement agencies showed numerous flaws to
implement counterterrorism mechanism. Furthermore, effective law enforcement actions
showed incompetence to track the potential attacks and the actual terrorist masterminds.
Furthermore, several trails placed on substantial demands on the capitals of the intelligence
organization, which showed propensity of spending on disrupting prospective attacks.
Comprehensive studies have claimed that detentions and trials also had been ineffective to
combat the militants gradually intensifying in Afghanistan. This has been considered as one
of the major challenges for setting up warfare against al Qaeda (Zegart 2019).
However, wide-ranging studies have offered insights on reasons, which led to miss of
opportunities, and factors, which led policy makers and analysts, lose the likely chances to
disturb the potential terror threat as well as to direct the U.S strategy to combat al Qaeda
(Husslage et al. 2015). As per reports, for analysts considering al Qaeda as the indicator of

4INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS
noise problem had been enormous. However, in 2001, CIA analysts tapped on the likely areas
where al Qaeda could attack chiefly in Europe, regions of Africa as well as the Middle East.
Moreover, the United States had been of primary concern (Shaffer 2015). However, the
country had been greatly involved in the data dilemma of information associated with
external attacks. In the view of Pastorello and Testa (2017), these external dangers had not
been essentially of noise but showed clear indications of other assaults. Militant associations
of al-Qaeda had been scheming attacks in Europe as well as the Middle East. In addition to
this, the FBI encountered severe challenges of being partial in supposing that major threat
would be outside the U.S. Reports have claimed that the analysts of FBI did not counter their
personal presumptions while they had information by 1998 that there had been a possibility
of bin Laden’s attack on the U.S or strategy of setting up an infrastructure in the homeland of
the United States. It has been claimed by Hill (2017), that such bias occurred due to the way
the FBI considered the Islamic terrorist associations.
In contrary, Smith (2017) argued that greater onus of cognitive letdowns lied on the
policymakers than the intelligence analysts. According to Chermak and Gruenewald (2015),
irrespective of the recurrent intimidations of Tenet and others, it had been quite indistinctive
to know the areas where terror attacks would be plotted on the overall U.S priority list.
Moreover, this absence of prioritization had led each agency to shed light on the problem of
greatest implication to them. Furthermore, the CIA had the onus of backing up war fighting
in Iraq as well as the Balkans, observing China besides other probable competitors and
providing financial investigations. However, for the FBI, infrastructure protection called for
resources. Most importantly there lacked any proper strategy or regulation followed by
agencies and analyst which led to the negligence of counterterrorism strategies or flat
finances. Moreover, the agency lacked appropriate approach for targeting jihadists which had
led to a liability of official reaction and not only of intelligence assemblage as a whole.

5INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS
While evaluating failed efforts of the US intelligence bureau, it has been noted that
organization theoretical explanations observed organizational pathologies but chiefly casted
light particularly on firms. In contrast, political scientists have explored national security
matters as well as administration but infrequently considered intelligence actions as reliant
variables. Malekos Smith (2018) have noted that Aldrich’s notion of expanding
organizational theory related to the inclusion of varied types of businesses rather than
focusing on political organizations. Due to extensive focus on firms, organizational theory
has developed devoid of much focus on politics and power and pressures which had been
significant for deliberating the growth and expansion of government agencies. According to
Eiran (2016), population ecologist has claimed that majority of agencies encounter strong
forces which led them to resist change. Additionally, it has been asserted that population
ecology considered organizational inertia as an initial assumption instead of viewing it as
dependent variable. Such an attempt has been seen as critical incompetence. However, at
such junctures, government would have the potential to be riddled with unconstructive
functioning agencies which continued as they had been open to the risk of new entrants.
In contrary, Walsh (2015) has claimed that obstructions to reform tend to transpire
from inside as well as outside of the agency. However, few of the reforms might show
incompetence as they counter the well-established organizational standards and pose risk to
change recognized routines. However, other might prompt hostility from opposing
government interventions that stand to increase or misplace relying on the consequence. In
consequence, evolving an improved consideration of agency adaptation failure necessitated
merge of the continuing veracities functioning in organizations with the ones working outside
them. In the view of Durbin (2017), such an approach even though not supposedly well-
established has been analytically effectual. Nonetheless, the perseverance of structural
conducts, the disinclination to deviate from conventional practices have not focused on

6INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS
reasons which did not led policymakers to frequently suggest statutory variations to the
intelligence community. On the contrary, analysing particularly the rational self-interest has
not shed light on reasons of FBI and CIA agents used to retain important case documents to
themselves instead of making computerised documentations before 9/11 attack. In addition it
showed less inclination of sharing information with the State Department about involving a
through list of evaluation of suspended al Qaeda operative with a numerous entry of U.S visa.
Conversely, studies have claimed that while intelligence officials failed to identify
the potential risks of 9/11 attack, it focused on the terrorizations posed by al Qaeda. As per
reports, the CIA has established an agency concentrating exclusively on Osama bin Laden
during the late 1990s as well as former U.S President Bill Clinton introduced underground
operations counter to al Qaeda (Pastorello and Testa 2017). Furthermore, the intelligence
society’s briefing of 2001 on international attacks considered Osama bin Laden’s terror acts
as the most direct and severe danger to the U.S. However, the 9/11 attacks have traumatized
the world, but could have been prevented if it would have been identified properly and timely
manner.
To conclude, the U.S intelligence community and law enforcement officers requires a
serious strategic effort in order to recognize the way U.S intelligence agencies can attain as
well as sustain the edge. This can attain by protecting civil liberties in a fundamentally
dissimilar technological landscape. Furthermore, the overall US has made great
advancements in the domain of science and technology along with the increase in the
capability gap between commercial as well as military technologies as well as overseas actors
must upsurge their efforts to obtain maximum capacity, establishments, information as well
as intellectual property by means of legal resources. Since 9/11, members of Congress along
with executive branch administrators in addition to intelligence experts have offered several
proposals to improve the U.S. intelligence community. Reform determinations since 9/11

7INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS
recommended that modifications to U.S. intelligence interventions are probable to show
incompetence in identifying external environmental difficulties. However, the restrictions,
which delay revision in U.S. intelligence agencies, must be alleviated by unexpected actions.
However, these limitations can under no circumstances be eradicated completely. It has been
noted that agencies such as the CIA as well as FBI, still find it easier to counterattack
modification rather than accept it.

8INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS
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