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Studies often warned of U.S. vulnerability
© St. Petersburg Times, WASHINGTON -- Still sitting on a few Pentagon bookshelves last week when part of the complex collapsed under terrorist attack was a dusty, 2-year-old report that vividly foreshadowed the disaster. "Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers," it warned. "We should expect conflicts in which adversaries, because of cultural affinities different from our own, will resort to forms and levels of violence shocking to our sensibilities." The report by the U.S. Commission on National Security, 21st Century, is one of at least a dozen official reports on terrorism in recent years that offered recommendations that might have prevented the massive loss of life Tuesday. There were reports in 1999, 2000 and 2001 from the Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction, headed by Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore. A 2000 report from the National Commission on Terrorism, headed by L. Paul Bremer. A 1997 report of the Advisory Commission on Airline Security, headed by then-Vice President Al Gore. A 1999 government report called the United States Government Interagency Domestic Terrorism Concept of Operation Plan. And at least four recent reports by the General Accounting Office and the Congressional Research Service. Some of the reports even name Muslim radical Osama bin Laden as the likely perpetrator of a massive terrorist attack on U.S. soil. The National Commission on Terrorism noted that bin Laden's Al-Qaida organization "represents a growing trend toward hatred of the United States." Perhaps the first government report to outline the modern threat of terrorism in the United States was published in 1986 by a commission headed by then-Vice President George Bush, father of the current president. After reviewing 11 terrorist incidents in foreign countries during 1985, the Bush commission concluded: "There is great potential for increased attacks in our own back yard." In other words, no one in government who can read a report should have been surprised when a small cadre of terrorists succeeded in hijacking four airliners and crashing them into two of the most important building complexes in the United States, killing thousands. Why were these reports ignored? Defense experts say U.S. political leaders have become complacent because no foreign war has touched their shores since 1812, because Americans have been unwilling to expend the lives of U.S. soldiers to directly attack terrorist cells and, quite possibly, because the threat of terrorism simply got lost in the mountain of official reports. "We've had so many wake-up calls and we've always hit the snooze alarm," said James Phillips, a specialist in Middle Eastern affairs with the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation. "I don't think the threat of terrorism has been given high enough priority. ... It's been studied and studied and nobody's been paying attention." Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, believes that last week's disaster might not have happened if presidents, Congress and other government officials had heeded the advice they repeatedly received. Graham noted the government has arrested some would-be terrorists before they caused any harm, as when a man was caught with a car full of explosives at the Canadian border in late 1999. "We have had some successes," he said, "but that doesn't answer the questions: 'Why did this happen?' and, 'What could we have done to prevent it?' " Since 1986, most commissions and experts have called on the president and Congress to reorganize the government agencies that deal with terrorism under a single leader, sometimes referred to as a "counterterrorism czar." The failure to follow this recommendation has, according to Graham, created a situation similar to a football team without a coach. Vice President Bush's 1986 report called for a czar in the White House. Some senators want the czar to report to the attorney general. One of the commissions recommended creation of a new Cabinet agency reporting to the president. "The turf wars among committees of Congress with their own responsibilities have always won out over those who advocated that we needed somebody in charge," said Graham, who advocates putting the czar in the White House. Another unheeded finding of most commissions is that U.S. intelligence agencies rely too heavily on spy satellite photographs for information, and thus do not cultivate spies within terrorist organizations. "You can't tell what a terrorists' intentions are from a satellite camera," Graham said. To assist the government in developing intelligence sources on the ground, Gilmore's commission recommended that Congress abolish what it sees as antiquated rules that prohibit the government from recruiting overseas spies who are guilty of human rights violations. "I believe these terrorists should wake up every morning uncertain whether people without their own organizations are giving information to the CIA," Gilmore said. "We have to rescind the old rules." Early government studies viewed terrorism as a law enforcement problem and thus recommended better ways for federal investigators to build criminal cases against people believed responsible for the attacks. The 1986 Bush report specifically rejected the idea of a military response to terrorist attacks, saying it could not condone the "wanton destruction of human life in order to show some muscle." Until recently, Phillips said, American officials worried that a massive military response not only would kill innocent people but perpetuate "the cycle of violence" in the world. Even economic and diplomatic sanctions often were rejected, Phillips said, because State Department officials feared they might interfere with other objectives of U.S. diplomacy, such as the Middle East peace process. Guided by these concerns, presidents since Ronald Reagan have chosen to seek prosecution of people believed responsible for terrorist attacks and, in some instances, to authorize bombing raids of their suspected hide-outs. Yet though Reagan's decision to bomb Libya in the mid 1980s was viewed as a success, President Bill Clinton was increasingly criticized for what Phillips calls "his propensity to hurl cruise missiles at a target, declare victory and go home." As President Bush's response to Tuesday's attack shows, there is growing support among counterterrorism experts for a sustained U.S. military attack, using special operations forces as well as traditional ground troops against terrorist sanctuaries without regard to the legal niceties. "The United States should not see retribution without evidence of culpability, of course," Phillips said. "But neither should it burden itself with establishing guilt for international terrorist attacks 'beyond a reasonable doubt.' " The old approach to retaliation, combining prosecution with surgical air strikes, was based on the assumption that in the post-Vietnam War era, the public would not support any military campaign against terrorism that would lead to U.S. casualties. Political leaders are guessing that Tuesday's attack will change that. "Nobody wants to have American men and women as casualties," Graham said. "We intervened in Kosovo without losing a single American life. I don't think we're going to be able to do that in our war against terrorism." Former Sen. Warren Rudman, chairman of the U.S. Commission on National Security, 21st Century, said that while the politicians were bickering over the recommendations of various counterterrorism commissions in recent years, the government simply failed to pay sufficient attention to the threat of terrorism. Rudman's commission, which submitted its second of three reports earlier this year, argues that "the security of the American homeland from the threats of the new century should be the primary national security mission of the U.S. government." The former senator said he is pleased that Bush has finally made it the top priority. "Our commission predicted exactly what has happened," Rudman said. "Maybe now people will start paying a lot more attention."
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