Ten Years Since 9/11, & the Years to Come

Sunday marks the passing of a decade since 19 hijackers took control of four commercial airliners and used them as guided missiles aimed at our nation’s government, military, and economy. Those 19 Al-Qaeda hijackers killed nearly 3,000 people, destroyed a building at the heart of our nation’s economic center, and severely damaged our nation’s military headquarters. Were it not for the bravery and courage of ordinary American’s on Flight 93, the hijackers may have struck the Capitol or the White House, injuring and killing hundreds more.

We all remember where we were when we first saw, or heard about the attacks. For a brief time afterwards, we ceased being people of multiple outlooks on life, diverse political views, differing races or religious faiths. We simply became Americans. We all flew our nation’s flag in our communities and in our hearts in the immediate aftermath, and in the weeks that followed.

The brave men and women in the ranks of our first responders fought back in the first hours after the Towers fell, and while the Pentagon and a crater in a Pennsylvania field burned. Then we sent our intelligence services and armed forces into battle in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa, and the Philippines to hunt down the members of Al-Qaeda responsible for the 9/11 attacks and attempt to halt the spread of a terrorist organization that uses a corrupted interpretation of Islam as its rallying cry. Our service members and intelligence officers went where they were ordered to go, and pursued our nation’s enemies, even if the justification for the war seemed less than completely understood or fully justified in the minds of our nation’s leaders or people. In spite of the terrible hardships of life on foreign battlefields, loss of limbs and of friends and comrades to death, broken marriages and failed relationships, they have kept faith with our nation and held to their oaths. They have continued the fight over these past ten years, and we have stood behind them, and we will continue to do so, so long as they are called to serve.

Ten years later - We have debated and will continue to debate the conduct of what the Bush Administration called ‘The War on Terror’, and what the Obama Administration now calls ‘The War on Al-Qaeda’. As a nation, we learned and will continue to learn from this debate. Challenges to the conduct of intelligence operations like the ‘warrantless wiretapping’ program and the detainment of terrorists and insurgents at Camp Delta were brought to the courts and litigated. The speeches made in Congress, the testimony before various committees, the resounding sound of public opinion, and the resultant new legislation. Legislation like the USA Patriot Act, passed and re-authorized the twice to improve and expand law enforcement and intelligence community capabilities under the law.

Ten years later - Executive Order 12333 has been amended, clarifying authorities and strengthening our nation’s intelligence services, the ‘warrantless wiretapping’ program continues under more rigorous oversight and under the rule of law affirmed in an August 2008 ruling by the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review. Closer and more collaborative relationships were forged within the intelligence community and between the intelligence community, law enforcement, and the military, and the National Counter Terrorism Center has been created to fuse and widely disseminate within the government all terrorism related intelligence and operational data.

Ten years later - Camp Delta remains open, and while President Obama has attempted to bring some of the detainees to the U.S. for trial within the criminal court system, the U.S. Congress has prohibited any appropriated funding from being used for such purposes. President Obama has since given permission for military trials to resume for the terror suspects, and signed an executive order to formalize the existing system of indefinite detention.

Ten years later - After being wrested from Taliban and Al-Qaeda control, Afghanistan has taken the first uncertain and hesitant steps towards a democratic form of government, but internal tribal loyalties hampering nationalism, dogged Taliban insurgents in the mountains dreaming of a strict Islamist State reborn, and an America strained, but unbeaten from ten years of fighting call into question Afghanistan’s future.

Ten years later - Osama bin Laden is dead. Buried at sea, the best unmarked grave we could find, he was laid to rest after the prayers of the faith he had defiled were said over his body by an American Muslim. He will not be a martyr to the evil cause he cherished, to those who choose hate and intolerance over peace and respect for others in spite of a different opinion or belief. He has paid for the pain and suffering he brought to our nation and others, and surely Allah has explained to him the depth of his mistakes in no uncertain terms.

In the years to come, the healthy debate in our nation will continue. We will continue to refine our approach to the problem of religious extremism used as an excuse to condone violence, while doing all we can to remain true to America’s ideals and beliefs of freedom and tolerance for other races, genders, faiths, and political viewpoints.

In the years to come, Al-Qaeda, its offshoots, and organizations like it will continue to exist in one form or another. Others will join the organization Bin Laden started, or create some splinter group fighting against America’s actions overseas or policies. They will commit acts of terror to further their cause and attempt to change America’s foreign policy, perceived or real, no matter which party holds the majority in Congress or occupies the White House. American citizens will be hurt and killed at home and abroad from time-to-time, and our intelligence, military and law enforcement organizations will do all they can to learn about these plots and then arrest, capture, or kill the plotters.

In the years to come, America will continue its fight against those who chose warfare and terror to attempt to gain political power or intimidate others. That fight will require more than just finding, fixing, tracking, and killing the leaders of these organizations. It will take continued efforts to inhibit radicalization in wherever and however it might occur, in order to break the generational cycle that breeds new radicals of any stripe. It will take several more decades, and it will cost both sides many young lives and billions in unrealized economic productivity; military, diplomatic, and humanitarian efforts. Fortunately we fought a long Cold War once, and while the reasons were different, the lives lost and billions spent were not. We won that long Cold War with the help of our friends and allies.

We and our allies will win this long war too.

Is Disclosing Classified Information a Crime?

Fox News reported today that Senator Dianne Feinstein (D - California), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), during a public committee hearing last week, apparently compromised the use of a Pakistani airbase by U.S. Predator drones. The SSCI was questioning the new Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair about the threat assessment he had just delivered to the committee. The Fox News article quoted her as follows:

" 'Mr. Holbrooke, in Pakistan, ran into considerable concern about the use of the Predator strikes in the FATA area of Pakistan," Feinstein said to Blair, referring to Richard Holbrooke, President Obama's special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan. "And yet, as I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base.' "

The fact that Predators were flying from a Pakistani airbase had apparently been determined to be a classified fact by the Department of Defense and presumably by both President Bush's and President Obama's administrations. As a member of the SSCI, Senator Feinstein, along with members of her professional staff, would have been required to sign non-disclosure agreements formally acknowledging that she was obligated to protect classified national security information and ensure it was not improperly disclosed to unauthorized individuals.

Had a professional member of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), or Intelligence Community (IC) had publicized or provided to a member of the news media this fact, they would likely have been guilty of violating U.S. Code, Title 18, Part I, Chapter 37, Section 793, paragraph D of U.S. law.

Assuming the professional member of the DoD or U.S. IC had been identified and prosecuted, the penalty under the law, as identified in 18 USC, Part I, Chapter 37, Section 793 is a fine and/or ten years imprisonment. The individual would also have had his or her security clearance rescinded immediately, and have likely had been placed on administrative leave.

If, in fact, the presence of the Predator airbase inside Pakistan was a classified fact, and that Senator Feinstein was informed that this information was classified; you would expect that she would be prosecuted for this violation of law.

I would I sincerely hope that the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, and the FBI Field Office, would conduct an investigation into this disclosure. However, I'm quite sure that as a sitting U.S. Senator, she will be given far more latitude for her verbal faux pas, the internal embarrassment an admittedly imperfect ally must now suffer, and her potential violation of U.S. law.

It's a shame that the more common U.S. citizen or career employee of the U.S. government would not likely receive the same treatment.

Executive Order 12333 Amended

President Bush issued Executive Order 13470 yesterday. This order alters Executive Order 12333, UNITED STATES INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES.

EO 12333 is one of the documents used within the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) to set policy, along with U.S. Law, the Constitution of the United States, and the Bill of Rights.

It sets out the President's guidance for the management of the community, affirms the roles and responsibilities of various IC elements, and prescribes some specific prohibitions the IC and its employees must respect.

So what was changed? (The changes listed below do not reflect typographical, grammatical, or consistency related changes within the EO.)

Part 1 - "Goals, Directions, Duties, & Responsibilities with Respect to U.S. Intelligence Efforts" was completely re-written. The major effect of the re-write of Part I is to insert the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) into a position of more direct control over the IC. This re-write helps to codify the DNI's authority and will hopefully cut down on any, "Yes you will." "No I won't." situations between the DNI and the heads of the IC elements.

Part 2 - "Conduct of Intelligence Activities" was altered to include:

• Changing Section 2.2 to include gathering foreign intelligence regarding "the spread of weapons of mass destruction."
• Changing Section 2.3 to ensure that signals intelligence (SIGINT) is only "disseminated or made available to Intelligence Community elements in accordance with procedures established by the Director in coordination with the Secretary of Defense and approved by the Attorney General."
  
• Changing Section 2.3.e to permit the collection, retention, and dissemination of information needed to protect foreign intelligence or counterintelligence activities.
• Changing Section 2.5 to limit the delegation of the approval of the IC's monitoring of a U.S. Person to that outlined in the FISA of 1978, as amended.
• Adding a new section, 2.13, which states that, "No covert action may be conducted which is intended to influence United States political processes, public opinion, policies, or media."

Part 3 was altered to include:

• Affirming the Attorney General's (AG) Role in Approving Procedures Established by IC Element Heads that Implement the Procedures in Section 2 - Any Dispute Between the AG and the IC Element Head will be Resolved by the National Security Council
  
• Providing current definitions of Counterintelligence, Covert Action, Electronic Surveillance, Employee, Foreign Intelligence, Intelligence, Intelligence Activities, the members of the IC, National Intelligence & Intelligence Related to National Security, and the National Intelligence Program

The prohibition against assassination remains in place, as well as the ban on human experimentation outside of the guidelines provided by the Department of Health and Human Services where the subject's informed consent has been documented.