[iwar] [fc:PLA's.analysis.of.the.HLS.department.and.9/11.]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2002-08-24 08:19:20
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Date: Sat, 24 Aug 2002 08:19:20 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [iwar] [fc:PLA's.analysis.of.the.HLS.department.and.9/11.]
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PLA's analysis of the HLS department and 9/11.  
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why 10,000 U.S. Special Agents Did Not Prevent “9-11”?
by Xiao Chen
Source: PLA Daily News Article, 11 June 2002 in Chinese (VERNACULAR)

With the recent babble of criticism stirred up by the American media,
given the clues that the U.S.  intelligence organizations had, the
question is: why was the intelligence related to “9-11” missed,
leading to the U.S.  suffering “history’s most disastrous terrorist
attack”? Especially after 6 June, when President Bush declared
formation of a homeland security agency, public opinion paid more
attention to this question. 

    “9-11” Gave Itself Away Very Early On

Beginning 4 June, U.S.  Congress began secret hearings to investigate
the facts behind the handling of intelligence pertaining to “9-11”
by the relevant intelligence organizations.  All the media in the U.S. 
paid extreme attention to this. 

According to “The New York Times,” Egyptian President Mubarak, at an
exclusive interview, revealed that approximately a week before
“9-11,” Egyptian intelligence warned U.S.  officials that the Bin
Laden-led “al-Qaeda” was preparing a major attack, with the targets
being U.S.  embassies, planes, or others.  But there was no reaction
from the U.S. 

According also to “USA Today,” the newspaper with the largest
circulation, CIA special agents had penetrated the “al-Qaeda”
organization, and had intercepted intelligence regarding the attack on
the U.S.  before “9-11”, tthis did not attract much attention. 

ABC revealed that one of the “9-11” hijackers had gone to an office
of the U.S.  Department of Agriculture in southern Florida, wanting a
loan of $650,000 from the U.S.  government to purchase a small plane,
and even asked the worker there whether he knew of “al-Qaeda” and
Bin Laden.  In addition, a day before “9-11,” the U.S.  public
security agency intercepted conversations between “al-Qaeda”
members, which included conversations regarding an impending large-scale
attack on the U.S., such as “a major event will occur,” “tomorrow
will be a day of major significance”, and the like.  But the
conversations were in Arabic.  With a shortage of translators, the
intercepted intelligence was not translated, but laid aside and
neglected, along with a lot of other intelligence. 

    Exactly what is the Problem with the Intelligence Department?

Exposure of case after case of this story has made the American public
very apprehensive.  President Bush also brought out during his address
on TV: “We need to clarify why this intelligence was overlooked, even
lost.” How could the U.S., which claims to possess the world’s
largest intelligence network, miss the danger signals of “9-11”?
Exactly what is the problem with the intelligence mechanism?

The U.S.  has a total of 13 intelligence institutions; largest and
foremost are the CIA, FBI, and NSA.  In addition, there are also those
subordinate to the military, the DIA, AI, NI, AFI, MCI, NRO, NIMA, and
intelligence sections in the Departments of State, Treasury, and Energy. 
The number of special agents concentrating on merely one subject exceeds
10,000.  (These institutions) Known as “the world’s largest
intelligence network”, it is large-scoped with a cost that is without
compare in the world. 

As the saying goes, “a great man cannot brook a rival” (literal
translation: one mountain cannot contain two tigers); but on the large
U.S.  intelligence web, there crawl 13 “spiders, large and small.  One
can imagine their relationship with each other: in their fighting for
funding and special prerogatives, the “spiders” not only often push
and pull, but also undermine each other.  For example, the CIA gives a
brief report daily to the President; the NSA gives a daily report to the
Pentagon.  You do not tell me what information you know; I do not let
you see the intelligence reports I have.  Also, the “spiders” have
complete blind faith in the technical measures of high technology.  The
huge amount of information collected by advanced satellites is often not
perused due to lack of personnel, and is regularly stored into a
computer and considered "all is well". 

Regarding this, President Bush criticized, “We have over 100
government agencies relevant to homeland security, but not one among
them has complete overall responsibility.” And the U.S.  media’s
criticism is that they squabble endlessly, neither exchanging nor
earnestly analyzing the intelligence, and the result is watching
helplessly as a tragedy unfolds, unable to take any measure to stop or
prevent it. 

    President Bush Reorganizes Government After the Fact

On 6 June, U.S.  President Bush declared a large reorganization of the
U.S.  government, creation of a new Homeland Security Department, and
thorough improvement of security and the collection of intelligence,
etc., to increase the U.S.  ability to counter terrorist attacks. 

It was announced that this is the biggest change in U.S.  government
since 1947.  The newly established Homeland Security Department will be
divided into border and transportation public security groups, emergency
preparedness and reaction teams, biological-chemical-nuclear
attack-prevention teams, intelligence analysis, and capital construction
protection teams, and the new department will administer INS and
Customs, (for a total of) 15 departments, with 17,000 workers, and an
estimated annual expenditure of $37B US.  The most mysterious thing is
that the process of creating a Homeland Security Department was shrouded
in secrecy, involving only President Bush and his four closest,
high-level assistants; even the inner Cabinet heads and the two
Congressional leaders had no prior knowledge. 

According to the U.S.  media analysis, Bush’s main reason for doing
things this way is to, after the fact, change the situation of the U.S. 
government’s present passivity in dealing with this problem.  After
the tragic events of “9-11”, Bush urgently announced the addition of
an Office for Homeland Security, responsible in planning for every
anti-terrorism department, and designated Pennsylvania Governor Ridge to
assume the post of Office Director. 

Following the in-depth investigation into “9-11”, especially after
exposure of the deficiencies of intelligence organizations in dealing
with the terrorist attack, public opinion became more and more severely
critical toward the Bush administration. 

Under these conditions, Bush decided, after the fact, to raise the
Homeland Security Office from its original temporary nature into a
permanent one, with complete responsibility for security, overall
planning for every intelligence organization, collection and analysis of
information from all sources, to attain the goal of preventing terrorist
attacks. 

    Can the New Department Plug the Holes?

Great public attention has been aroused by Bush’s announcement of
plans to establish a homeland security department.  The U.S.  Congress
has expressed support; and the Senate Government Affairs Committee
Chairperson Lieberman stated that, “We need to discuss and implement
this plan as soon as possible.” But public opinion points out that
relying on only one, newly established department can not
comprehensively solve the problems left over from the past. 

Although Bush has stated that the purpose in creating a new homeland
security department is to “merge all similar agencies, and to end a
situation of redundant functions,” those who are against establishing
a homeland security department say this plan diverts attention and
glosses over the seriousness of the failure of the government concerning
“9-11”.  Establishing a new and enormous homeland security
department is only to construct another bureaucratic agency.  Bush
stated, “The real question is that we have too many bureaucratic
frameworks which do not communicate with each other.” The new
organization will only stack all the departments and piece them
together.  How the pieces will coordinate and communicate with each
other is still uncertain.  The worst case scenario would be that the
huge change may possibly give rise to a new round of fighting for power,
and ultimately be buried in the sea of bureaucracy. 

Source: PLA Daily News Article, 11 June 2002 in Chinese (VERNACULAR)

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