Memo To:    9-11 Commission
From:         Joseph D. Douglass Jr.
Re:            Dr. Rice’s testimony.

As I was listening to the questions and answers during Dr. Rice’s testimony, I grew increasingly disturbed. In the evening I listened to the whole session again on CSPAN. With each set of questions my concerns came into better focus. I put them in writing because I believe the magnitude of the threat to U.S. security is enormous, yet nowhere did this seem present during this critical testimony. Rather, what was present was business as usual – partisan politics, contradictions, inconsistencies, and everyone smiling for the cameras.

John Lehman, in effect, argued that the role of the commission was not to assign blame but rather to learn how we might improve our defense system. That would have been fine if it were not so characteristic of what is forever the situation in Washington: no accountability. Lack of accountability is as much a part of the problem we face as “structure.” If you can not focus on where the system broke down, not only impersonal structure, but also in terms of people, positions, policy, and attitudes (or “culture”), can you be serious about the problem and the importance of fixing things?

I perceived no serious sense of alarm or concern about the magnitude of the problem. It seems to me that the hearings should have been deadly serious, rather than another election-year political event with inappropriate smiles on most every face. I could not understand how any commission member who felt that their lives and the lives of their families were at risk could have tolerated the never-ending succession of filibusters that Dr. Rice went into in response to almost every question. Only one member, Senator Kerrey, complained about her repeated filibusters. Dr. Rice continued undaunted, her evident mission being to absolve everyone from any blame or accountability, place the blame on impersonal “structural problems,” and defend herself and the President from charges that there might have been more they could have done, notwithstanding the presence of numerous indications of intentions and danger for at lease nine months prior to 9-11. Efforts to get at the trouble seemed more superficial than real. For the most part, political correctness and the evident need to avoid any show of confrontation ruled the day.

The excessive use of “figures of speech” is an example of this superficiality. It projected a lack of real seriousness regarding the subject. When one is serious, figures of speech are replaced by accuracy and precision in speech; to communicate facts and ideas clearly, not sloughing them off with cute expressions that say little and bypass clarity. Senator Kerrey, in response to Dr. Rice’s report that President Bush was getting tired of “swatting flies,” tried to bring the interview back to some factual examples without success. Other glib phrases, more appropriate for casual or cocktail conversations, such as “silver bullets,” “shaking the trees,” and “tasking” only served to confuse or obfuscated rather than engage in serious dialogue. Why did the commission play this game, especially the clever use of “silver bullet”? No one was looking for “silver bullets” before Dr. Rice turned the discussion in that direction. This appears to have been done to divert attention away from one of the investigation tasks, which was to learn where the system broke down, which in glib parlance might be viewed as looking for possible “smoking guns” – evidence of a crime, that is. The deliberate use of the silver bullet metaphor deflected attention because there is no such precise silver bullet “cure” for such a complex problem. The use of silver bullet and what that implies shifts the mind away from the task of learning what broke down – people, positions, policies, and attitudes – and onto a non-existing remedy to failures as were experienced on 9-11. But, the failures have to be understood first, and this requires accountability, even though this is distasteful.

It seemed quite clear by the end of the testimony that there were more than half a dozen events or opportunities, “smoking guns,” any one of which should have triggered serious immediate investigations conducted outside the normal bureaucratic “tasking” process. Instead, nothing happened. The bureaucracy was left to its normal routine with one side, Dr. Rice, claiming everyone was “tasked” (how, was not said), and all the various heads of agencies claiming they were never informed about the threat.

Throughout the discussions the lack of follow-up on important tasks or memos (because of the absolute need for more information and results now) became glaringly apparent. Equally clear, it is likely that there is a much larger number of events that should have generated actions but that these will never be brought to light. They will be classified or buried for political reasons. Any one of the identified events could have led to actions to prevent or thwart the attacks on 9-11, even if this were just a case of making certain that pilots and air crews were alerted to the seriousness of the threat and given instructions on what to look for and how to respond, and/or quietly putting U.S. marshals on flights. That this as a minimum should have been done was crystal clear at least by August 6.

The assumption that there was too much momentum to derail one or more of the attacks, was first introduced as I recall by the former head of counter-terrorism, Richard Clarke, in earlier testimony before the commission. This idea is convenient from the perspective of those in responsible positions. But any answer is strictly speculation and without substantiation.

Dr. Rice’s testimony was under oath. Thus, to accept what she was saying it seems necessary to hypothesize that she was unable to see or acknowledge the shortcomings and mistakes. She and others in the administration must be in a state of denial, not uncommon nowadays. Indeed, denial may be one of the hardest problems the commission (and all Americans) faces. How can any of us correctly perceive what is happening when our culture as a whole has been conditioned to be “politically correct” in what we say and do? We are more conditioned to being “politically correct” than to being alert, diligent, and questioning, which is absolutely crucial when it comes to warning and threat analysis.

Obviously, the whole concept of a “threat” to our “internal security” does not seem to be recognized by the government, the media, or the American people. The whole idea of talking about national security and internal security as though they were two different subjects is, to my way of thinking, absurd. In other words, the problem begins in our minds and language.

The lack of concern over the impact on security in different government agencies of many decisions can be seen in the questions John Lehman posed, such as the removal of U.S. marshals from air planes. The failure of INS and Congress to attend to the massive presence of illegal aliens and foreign intelligence agents in the country is another good example. Not only is security undermined by people who are not thinking of the security consequences of their actions but, additionally, the actions or lack thereof infect the rank and file with an “it’s only a game” attitude (a la Aldrich Ames).

I was witness to a similar example fifteen years ago. Two U.S. Customs officials looked at me after I explained the exceedingly important role of foreign intelligence services in the drug trade. “What do you expect us to do?” they asked. “That’s a political problem that we can’t fight.” This is particularly relevant to the war on terrorism because the narcotics problem is inseparable from the problem of homeland defense against terrorism.

I was also disturbed about all the importance of political correctness in the manner in which the 9-11 attacks were characterized by the government, including Dr. Rice, and the commission. The 9-11 attacks were the worst attacks on America since Pearl Harbor, for example. But, what makes 9-11 worthy of such attention and vigorous response and not illegal drugs and their trafficking? Consider:

First, the damage caused by the 9-11 attacks was not all that horrendous when compared with other situations that we seem to now accept as “normal.” For example, 9-11 cannot begin to compare with the damage suffered as the result of illegal drugs trafficking each year. The attacks of 9-11 resulted in, roughly, 3,500 deaths, almost no casualties, and let’s say $100 billion in costs. Each year illegal drug trade causes about 50,000 deaths, over 300,000 casualties, over $250 billion in costs, and the worst is yet to come: the massive and cumulating corruption and compromise of our political, legal, police, intelligence, business, and judicial systems due to illegal drug money in the $150 to $250 billion range annually.  If some of these figures seem high, it is because most official estimates over the past fifteen years have been dominated by statistics such as the Household Use surveys which are so ludicrous in their assumptions and restrictions that they understate the amount of drug use by at least a factor of three. This figure comes from actual experiments conducted by the Emory School of Medicine.

Second, it is hard to distinguish between drug trafficking problems and terrorism. Terrorists raise money pushing drugs and drug barons are active in terrorism. Moreover, the money laundering and financial support networks overlap. If we are serious in our efforts to target terrorist financial support networks we will, at the same time, be hitting (both wittingly and unwittingly) the financial support structure of drug trafficking and international organized crime, whose base is narcotics trafficking and whose top players include top officials, including heads of state, in numerous countries around the globe. If you doubt this, read the U.S. interagency International Crime Threat Assessment report of December, 2000.

Three, when today’s narcotics trafficking networks were set up in the 1960s and 1970s, they were designed with two missions in mind: moving drugs into countries, especially the United States, and using these networks and mechanisms as a cover and wherewithal for moving sabotage agents and material (or, terrorists and their supplies) into a country, like the United States, when desired without being noticed.

Four, on several occasions the issue discussed during the testimony was the failure of the United States to respond to the attack on the USS Cole because an act of war deserved a strong response. ( No one raised questions about other attacks that triggered no response, for example the deliberate attack on the USS Liberty in 1967 when 34 seamen were killed.)

Believe it or not, there is little difference between the 9-11 attack and the illegal drug problem we have been plagued with since the mid-1960s. Narcotics trafficking against our country has been a deliberate state activity run in large measure by intelligence services of China (beginning in 1949) and the Soviet Union, now Russia (beginning in 1960). These are deliberate attacks, acts of war that we have swept under the rug for reasons of political correctness. They are worse attacks than 9-11 I believe because they are deliberately targeted against our most valuable asset: our youth and children.

Why devote so much space to this issue?

Simple. How can we seriously address our defense weaknesses and needed homeland defense improvements without taking a look at the war on drugs: specifically, why it has been such a failure?

There is, of course a significant difference between 9-11 and the illegal drug problem. The 9-11 attack was politically embarrassing, a shock to peace and tranquility at home, and the government could not blame the attack on the American people, which has been the main excuse for not fighting a serious war on drugs since that war began. If the government is going to protect major drug traffickers and the organizations behind the trafficking, why should people risk their jobs or lives because of a few terrorists that do less damage?

One of Dr. Rice’s missions was to place the full blame for 9-11 on “structural problems.” There are structural problems, although I doubt the claim that the head of the CIA and FBI could not talk to each other because of the law. If you want examples of how well the two agencies work in combination when they want to and flaunt the law, see the Texas court decision in the Edwin Wilson case that ruled that Wilson’s prior conviction in 1982 was unlawful because of the joint connivance, use of false documents, and misrepresentation by the CIA, FBI, and Justice Department during the proceedings.

It seems to me that anyone who thinks that structure is the problem may not understand the depth and breadth of the problem. Far more serious in my judgment is the culture, in both the CIA and FBI. In the CIA, with which I am more familiar, while many professionals recognize the importance of CIA culture and its effect on “performance,” I have never seen any attempt to go to the heart of the problem. I do not see how the nature of the cultural problem can be appreciated, for example, without going back to the formative years of the OSS when most of the worst aspects of the culture became imbedded in the system (elitism, the CIA position that “we-may-not-always-be right-but-we-are-never-wrong,” their use of off-budget monies (such as revenues from illegal drug trafficking) to thwart oversight and accountability, manipulation of threat information to support secret political agendas, and extensive penetration by the enemy at all levels). Yet, few want to address such aspects of the systemic problems, perhaps because to do so would be politically incorrect.

Another good example evident in the testimony of the problems the commission faces in formulating its recommendations is the continuing failure to comprehend just how serious the threat is. For example, there is an event that did not take place on 9-11 but should be considered part of this attack. I am referring to the anthrax letter attacks, or test, or demonstration, however it is best described. This attack seems to have been more of a surprise than 9-11 (recall from Woodward’s Bush at War that George Tenet was not as surprised about 9-11 as he was about the anthrax letters). There has been no announcement that anyone in the government has figured out who did it or why.

The Woodward book has a good example of the problems in coming to grips with the nature of the anthrax problem. George Tenet, Scooter Libby, and Vice President Cheney are discussing the anthrax letter attack. Tenet says, “I think there is a state sponsor involved.” Libby cautions against mentioning a state sponsor. Tenet responds that he is not about to talk about a state sponsor. Then Cheney says: “It’s good that we don’t because we’re not ready to do anything about it.” Along these lines, when a top Russian biological warfare expert who defected to the United States tried to warn people in U.S. intelligence in the late 1990s about the threat, he was advised, “Perhaps there are questionable activities going on, but for the moment, diplomacy requires us to keep silent.”

The anthrax letter attack seems to me to display the systemic problems within our government even more than 9-11. It is important to understand how serious the CBW (chemical and biological warfare) threat is – not the CBW threat as described in government announcements and the media, but the threat as represented in data that often does not get into intelligence estimates. Information on the CBW threat that goes well beyond nerve agents and anthrax and plague has been both suppressed and/or deliberately not collected since 1969. The history of this is extensive. The conclusion that comes out of this material is that it would be child’s play, notwithstanding the Department of Homeland Defense and remedy of the various “structural problems,” to mount a massive terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland using advanced CBW agents and without the government seeing any warning or afterwards being able to link the attack with any perpetrator. Recall from the above that terrorists or saboteurs and sufficient CBW agents can be brought into our country using drug trafficking networks and mechanisms.

I raise these points for your consideration because as an American and former defense analyst, I am extremely concerned about the threats to America that I believe have never been more serious. Isn’t it time to try to set aside politics and get deadly serious? Does anyone in the government really care about the magnitude of the threats we face and our systemic vulnerabilities? Is there any interest in the reasons we were attacked in the first instance and why we remain increasingly a target for attack?

Insofar as the commission is extremely concerned about the American public’s concern, the reason you pressured the White House to Dr. Rice testify, I would like to end with a suggestion. Direct one of the 65 people on your staff to go to the Internet and to various call-in shows. Let him or her make a list of the top twenty 9-11 questions people have been asking and, based on your enormous cache of documentation and testimonies, prepare brief authoritative factual answers to the questions where you can and acknowledge the absence of such answers to those where you can’t and, if possible, state why.

Thank you for taking the time to read and consider the above.

© 2004 Joseph D. Douglass, Jr.
Editorial Archive

Joseph D. Douglass, Jr., Ph.D., is a defense analyst, author of The Soviet Theater Nuclear Offensive and co-author of CBW: The Poor Man’s Atomic Bomb and America the Vulnerable: The Threat of Chemical and Biological Warfare. His most recent books are Red Cocaine: The Drugging of America and Betrayed: The Story of America’s Missing POWs.