I was impressed by the
9/11 Commission Report, though realizing that there were various limitations, and that the reforms suggested might be problematic in various aspects. All the same, it was well written, provided good background material, had striking "you are there" reporting of the day itself, and provided some important thoughts on how a successful policy might be carried forth.
Judge Richard Posner was a less impressed, but
his analysis left a bit to be desired, though worthy criticism in various aspects. He was impressed with the writing with the opening paragraphs before the criticism starts basically focus on it, as if it is the main thing he found useful. Posner thought the analysis subpar, perhaps because the report was rushed or was unanimous. Is not it useful to have this in front of us when we vote in November? Is not it more forceful when it is unanimous, not a divided (probably politically) report?
Anyway, since his tone is in general negative, I shall focus on the points of which I disagree. I'd add that I felt the last chapter a bit weak, the solutions debatable (so I welcome criticism), but thought they surely had more merit than Posner. On the other hand, I felt the other two chapters of analysis rather useful, if sometimes in a broad sense, and Posner's criticism or even belittling of it honestly annoyed me. This petulance comes in part because I do not think he even gave them enough respect of a fair rebuttal. Finally, I think the value supplied by the background, 9/11 reporting, and an independent report itself must be underlined. Posner did not do this, and this too is a flaw of his review. [How can you review a book and basically have but a sentence about eighty percent of it?!]
Had the investigation been left to the government, the current administration would have concealed its own mistakes and blamed its predecessors. This is not a criticism of the Bush White House; any administration would have done the same.
This is a bit too evenhanded -- this White House and this Congress in particular are particularly prone to such things. [The next few paragraphs were added after this post was published.] Still, Posner does basically seem to accept the necessity of an independent commission, though he misses part of its point:
The enormous public relations effort that the commission orchestrated to win support for the report before it could be digested also invites criticism -- though it was effective: in a poll conducted just after publication, 61 percent of the respondents said the commission had done a good job, though probably none of them had read the report.
How Posner knows that "none" of those polled read the report is unclear, especially if this means a basic understanding of what it said. Also, the report itself is in some sense not the point, the commission itself was, including the very public friendly qualities Posner criticizes here. It is just such an "enormous public relations effort" that should be praised, if only more of an effort is made to make public or quasi-public bodies directly to the people themselves. This criticism has shades of a troubling elitism, one that Posner sometimes is accused of.
The participation of the relatives of the terrorists' victims (described in the report as the commission's "partners") lends an unserious note to the project (as does the relentless self-promotion of several of the members). One can feel for the families' loss, but being a victim's relative doesn't qualify a person to advise on how the disaster might have been prevented.
I also do not quite understand how participation of the victims' families (though they too are victims) lends an unserious note to the project. If anything, it makes it more serious, more important. Does Posner suggest they should not have participated? If so, is he serious? I wonder if participation of ordinary people in cases his court decides downgrades the seriousness of their jobs. Finally, and this is patently obvious so it annoys me he doesn't point it out, the victims took part because of a desire to investigate certain aspects of the attacks of which they were particularly interested in. Aspects we had every duty to investigate. They were not there to advise how to reform the intelligence system.
[The last two sections were one paragraph in the review, perhaps the most stupid of them all -- surely up there. I underline my ire because it truly annoys me when such shallow argument is offered.]
But the idea that it would do so by infiltrating operatives into this country to learn to fly commercial aircraft and then crash such aircraft into buildings was so grotesque that anyone who had proposed that we take costly measures to prevent such an event would have been considered a candidate for commitment.
Not quite. First, the idea of "infiltrating operatives" was surely not outrageous, and it was well known that Al Qaeda cells existed in the U.S. The fact they might commit terrorist acts was also clear, especially since such acts were done or attempted. The idea that they would include hijackings also was far from uncomprehensible.
The final step was actually how said hijacks would be carried out. Not a trivial matter, though in fact likely to be deemed quite possible if intel discovered in the Summer of 2001 had time to simmer, but the other facts arguably was enough to put us on guard. For instance, a better passenger screening system would have brought to attention at least two operatives, even before the summer. This event alone is far from trivial. Posner quotes a Defense Department's Defense Threat Reduction Agency report that was complacent as to hijackings. Such "climate of thought" is just what the Report criticized, though in fact not really true to the intelligence available.
The commission's contention that "the terrorists exploited deep institutional failings within our government" is overblown.
Why? Posner himself notes that the solutions offered to the Bin Laden problem "for political or operational reasons" were not "feasible." If this is not at least in part a matter of institutional failings, what is? The same applies to his suggestion that one reason for the Bush Administration's "tepid" response to the Al Qaeda threat was the fact it was "predisposed to reject the priorities" of the preceding administration. I again think Posner is overly fair in suggesting anyone would be as "predisposed," but anyway, its an institutional failing if how we deal with terrorist threats depends on what part of the political cycle we are in.
Posner for some reason doesn't point to the problems with sharing information that clearly is a major thing the commission had in mind when it wrote that. This also hindered various opportunities to attack Bin Laden and his forces. Or how the "Wag The Dog" concerns probably led to additional caution. Or how Congress failed to investigate the need to update our national security to deal with new threats, but tossed it to independent commissions. And so on. I also don't quite know what sort of "campaign of attrition" Clinton had in mind against Al Qaeda.
It thus is not surprising, perhaps not even a fair criticism, that the new administration treaded water until the 9/11 attacks.
No response to the USS Cole attack. Emphasis put on other matters, even though Clinton/Berger/Clarke warned them that Al Qaeda was the biggest ongoing threat out there. And, they did not just "tread" water, as in keeping things as they were. If anything, they did less, including less briefings and organized meetings of "the principals." It is "fair" to wonder if a Gore Administration, having for years faced up to a growing threat, would have handled things differently as warning flags started to arise.
Posner then provides a "short" list of improvements that are implied by the findings of the report. He lists seven, though several can be broken down into various parts. Posner suggests the FBI needs to undergo serious reforms, though many are of "managerial" not "institutional" nature. I fail to understand how the two are not seriously intertwined. The FBI works the way it does because it is set up to do so.
Anyway, comments like "significant improvements in border control and aircraft safety" have been done also are questionable. Posner also notes (though doesn't underline) that the Report suggests the Patriot Act was not required for the demolition of the information "wall," though he ignores that it was but one reason for the inhibition of information transfer (again, largely institutional reasons). Also, I don't agree none of the other improvements besides FBI reform are "interesting." Anyway, if the area does interest him, why doesn't he compare his suggested solution (based on the British model or at least "as far as [he] know[s]" about it) with the Report's analysis? Finally, why does he list nothing regarding military action and foreign intelligence?
Which brings me to another failing of the 9/11 commission: American provinciality.
How exactly the 9/11 Commission itself fails in this respect is unclear. Is this not part of the lack of "imagination" that the Report was concerned about? The desire that we have better relations with the world, including working with them to fight modern threats? Is this administration again no worse than any other in this regard? And, talking about "underestimat[ing] non-Western foes" ... the Report supplies a pretty respectful thumbnail sketch of Al Qaeda's strategy. What are you talking about?
[Then he snipes at the recommendations.]
Anyone who thinks this pattern can be changed should read those 90 pages of analysis and recommendations that conclude the commission's report; they come to very little.
Not true, especially if we see them as a broad discussion of what we have to face in a condensed form that will receive broad distribution. To criticize the lack of specifics in various instances is ironic coming from someone who didn't want recommendations at all -- specifics are for policymakers. Commissions open the dialogue. Saying that we are already doing some of the stuff they suggest also is not exactly a criticism, since it suggests we are on the right path. No small matter.
Posner also ignores such concerns such as protection of civil liberties, multilateral relations, and so forth. He also sneers at the "hearts and minds" campaign of appealing to the Muslim people. Posner later says the Commission is wrong to suggest that we cannot use the same basic strategies tried in the past against the Soviet threat. Changing the culture behind the Iron Curtain so that the people themselves demanded change, however, is thought of as a major success. Why not here as well?
The commission wants criteria to be developed for picking out which American cities are at greatest risk of terrorist attack, and defensive resources allocated accordingly -- this to prevent every city from claiming a proportional share of those resources when it is apparent that New York and Washington are most at risk. Not only do we lack the information needed to establish such criteria, but to make Washington and New York impregnable so that terrorists can blow up Los Angeles or, for that matter, Kalamazoo with impunity wouldn't do us any good.
The suggestion belittled here is akin to the police treating every neighborhood in a city of equal threat -- it's simply foolhardy. Clearly, certain cities and areas are particularly vulnerable, partly for reasons of population, likely targets, and so forth. Los Angeles would likely be one such target, especially since LAX was already targeted in the past. I'm also unclear about something: DC is defended particularly well now. Is this a problem? After all, Baltimore or heck Spartansburg, SC is endangered in the process!
The report states that the focus of our antiterrorism strategy should not be "just 'terrorism,' some generic evil" ... But if we listen to the 9/11 commission, we won't be looking out for it because we've been told that Islamist terrorism is the thing to concentrate on.
The point is that "terrorism" is too vague -- specific terrorist threats bring forth different concerns and different solutions. This is why it singled out "Islamic terrorism" -- understanding the specific threat at issue in the report requires we understand the nature of the specific group behind it. I don't think the Report wanted our government to believe there was only one threat out there. Posner is twisting their words.
Also, though more focus on bioterrorism and cyberterrorism probably was warranted (but how relevant to a
9/11 Commission per se? or as the review itself says in its first sentence: "experienced people [that] would investigate the government's failure to anticipate and prevent the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001"), surely the recommendations are not limited to this specific threat!
[belittling two thirds of the final section of the book, Posner than focuses on the final chapter, though he doesn't talk about its FBI recommendations]
Well, everyone is now on edge because of 9/11. Indeed, the report suggests no current impediments to the flow of information within and among intelligence agencies concerning Islamist terrorism. So sharing is not such a problem after all. And since the tendency of a national intelligence director would be to focus on the intelligence problem du jour, in this case Islamist terrorism, centralization of the intelligence function could well lead to overconcentration on a single risk.
The reference to how intelligence was shared during the "Millennium Crisis" does not imply that the system would always work that way. In fact, arguably, the Bush Administration is set up in a way to make such sharing less likely -- though Posner refuses to admit that certain administrations might act differently in such matters. Also, the whole point is that we need such a system on a daily basis, not only when threat levels are high. Finally, various measures (including oversight) can help prevent this "du jour" problem.
The commission thinks the reason the bits of information that might have been assembled into a mosaic spelling 9/11 never came together in one place is that no one person was in charge of intelligence. That is not the reason.
What are they? (1) Too much information to process correctly. Unclear (especially with new technology and collection techniques) and the report suggests improvements, including less redundant spreading of the limited number of resources. (2) Security concerns in sharing information. Not only is it generally accepted that there is too much classification, but the Report also has suggestions on how to improve information sharing while still keeping security issues (institutional failings?) in mind. (3) Tendency to hoard information. Unity limits such ahem institutional failings. Posner fears it will be counterproductive.
Efforts to centralize the intelligence function are likely to lengthen the time it takes for intelligence analyses to reach the president, reduce diversity and competition in the gathering and analysis of intelligence data, limit the number of threats given serious consideration and deprive the president of a range of alternative interpretations of ambiguous and incomplete data -- and intelligence data will usually be ambiguous and incomplete.
A central clearinghouse if anything would
help the president in many cases. The new framework would also still have various agencies and compartments that will provide diversity, competition, and so forth. And, how exactly will the President be able to understand and process the "alternative interpretations?"
The proposal begins to seem almost absurd when one considers the variety of our intelligence services. ... The national intelligence director would be in continuous conflict with the attorney general, the secretary of defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the secretary of homeland security and the president's national security adviser. He would have no time to supervise the organizational reforms that the commission deems urgent.
Such intel still has to be processed now. The problem doesn't go away, if problem there be, if things stay the same.
The report notes the success of efforts to centralize command of the armed forces, and to reduce the lethal rivalries among the military services. But there is no suggestion that the national intelligence director is to have command authority.
Right. It is not a "policymaking body" ... it is an intelligence body. That's the whole point. I'd also add that given the National Security Council would be in charge of policy, it is clearly opens up a strong alternate voice, just the sort of diversity Posner worries about. And, it probably wouldn't be alone. Finally, a core emphasis of the report is cooperation, including promoting the idea employees should get a taste of various departments. Is this a problem?
The central-planning bent of the commission is nowhere better illustrated than by its proposal to shift the C.I.A.'s paramilitary operations, despite their striking success in the Afghanistan campaign, to the Defense Department. The report points out that "the C.I.A. has a reputation for agility in operations," whereas the reputation of the military is "for being methodical and cumbersome." Rather than conclude that we are lucky to have both types of fighting capacity ...
A major problem, again ignored by Posner, is that the CIA and its director has too much to do. Given it is the Central Intelligence Agency, it is unclear why it should be involved in military operations. The report also suggests it is a waste of limited resources. Finally, if anything, the recommendations' suggestion to decrease the breadth of the CIA's role is just the opposite of a "central-planning bent."
The review ends on a fatalistic note:
When the nation experiences a surprise attack, our instinctive reaction is not that we were surprised by a clever adversary but that we had the wrong strategies or structure and let's change them and then we'll be safe. Actually, the strategies and structure weren't so bad; they've been improved; further improvements are likely to have only a marginal effect; and greater dangers may be gathering of which we are unaware and haven't a clue as to how to prevent.
The review thus ends on the same note as it begins -- exaggerated. The Report inform us of the "clever" nature of our adversary. It tells us that we will not be safe, just safer, if reforms are made. The Report is generally fair in understanding the realities the government had to face before 9/11, but clearly reforms are necessary. The nature of such reports is to in some fashion to overemphasize certain matters, but even Posner admits a major part of said "structure" (the FBI) left something to be desired. And, other areas do need reform as well.
Overall, worthwhile as it might be in pointing out some weaknesses of the Report, the review is in various ways "unimpressive." It ignores certain political realities, is not really fair in various of its criticisms, and is misguided in its rejection or avoidance of certain important discussions. The final "realistic" sentiment might be true up to a point, but is just too fatalistic. New technology, threats, and the need for periodic change all suggests improvements are not just a "marginal" matter. In fact, a unanimous report has helped push the government to start to seriously examine such issues. Would a divided report (perhaps without recommendations or as much analysis) that came out sometime in the middle of 2005 have the same effect?
