Author: Mike Ewens

As the death total in Iraq inches towards 1000, the Department of Defense press corps has started to work on weekends. DoD press releases have almost always been sent out on weekdays, presumably when the government is at “work.” This weekend however, the DoD released the names of four US Marines killed in Iraq on Friday. Such timing suggests that they hope to get these names under the mainstream press radar. With but one mention of three of these deaths, they have succeeded.

The four Marines killed were:

Lance Cpl. Nicholas Wilt, 23, of Tampa, Fla, died Sept 3 due to enemy action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. Wilt was assigned to 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, Calif.

1st Lieutenant Ronald Winchester, 25, of Rockville Center, N.Y., died Sept 3 due to enemy action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. Winchester was assigned to 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, Calif.

and:

Lance Cpl. Nicholas Perez, 19, of Austin, Texas.

Capt. Alan Rowe, 35, of Hagerman, Idaho.

Both Marines died Sept 3 due to enemy action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. Perez was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, Calif. Rowe was assigned to 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, Calif.

NPR‘s All Things Considered recently completed a six-part series on the relationship between the West and Middle East. On top of being a good historical overview, the series essentially demonstrates the ill-effects of “blowback.” The last part of the series concludes that American intervention is to blame for Islamic terrorism targeting the US. Below are links to each part of the series where the audio links are found:

The Crusades: Two Centuries of Holy War

The Rise of the Ottoman Empire

Europe Carves Up the Middle East

World War I and its Aftermath

The Rise of the U.S. in the Middle East

The Clash with Islam

Chapter 7 meticulously chronicles the arrival and actions of the nineteen hijackers. Little interesting information is found in the chapter. However, one is surprised by the remarkable ease at which many of the men moved around and in and out of the United States. Also, beyond stopping each at the border, it seems little could have been done once the men were inside the U.S. Their lives consisted of time at the mosque, the gym and flight training, setting off few alarms at the FBI or CIA.

The government has attempted to adjust its law enforcement capabilities to these simple methods of assimilating and moving about the country [read: PATRIOT Act]. However, this chapter’s narrative suggests that new methods of hiding and concealing identities will adapt to anything the government implements. This scenario suggests more should be done on the policy front; i.e. altering those policies that anger individuals enough to lead them to commit suicide in response.

Chapter 8 is best summed up by its conclusion:

“We see little evidence that the progress of the plot was disturbed by any government action. The U.S. government was unable to capitalize on mistakes made by al Qaeda.Time ran out.” (page 294)

Entitled “The System Was Blinking Red,” the chapter details a plethora of missed opportunities. Simply, various government bureaucracies failed to connect the dots. This problem stemmed from a few issues. One was a problem of information sharing. The report describes a meeting between CIA and FBI who were separately investigating the attack on the USS Cole. Each attendee held information, that if put together, would have suggested al Qaeda was planning something in the US. However, due to technical issues between bureaucracies, the information was never shared:

“It is now clear that everyone involved was confused about the rules governing the sharing and use of information gathered in intelligence channels.”(page 288)

Upon investigation, each member of this meeting told the commission that if they had seen the others’ info, action would have been taken.

The government also struggled with the new and unseen threat of domestic terrorism:

The September 11 attacks fell into the void between the foreign and domestic threats. The foreign intelligence agencies were watching overseas, alert to foreign threats to U.S. interests there.The domestic agencies were waiting for evidence of a domestic threat from sleeper cells within the United States. (page 290)

Despite the above setbacks, DCI Tenet still claimed that the “system was blinking red.” Here’s a quick overview of some of the warnings the administration received in 2001:

“In the spring of 2001, the level of reporting on terrorist threats and planned attacks increased dramatically to its highest level since the millennium alert.” (page 272)

“On May 17, based on the previous day’s report, the first item on the CSG’s agenda was ‘UBL: Operation Planned in U.S'”(page 273)

“One al Qaeda intelligence report warned that something ‘very, very, very, very’ big was about to happen, and most of Bin Ladin’s network was reportedly anticipating the attack.” (page 274)

“On June 30, the SEIB contained an article titled ‘Bin Ladin Threats Are Real.’ Yet Hadley told Tenet in July that Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz questioned the reporting.”(page 276)

“To give a sense of his anxiety at the time, one senior official in the Counterterrorist Center told us that he and a colleague were considering resigning in order to go public with their concerns.” (page 276)

Unfortunately, no one in the government was “looking for foreign threats to domestic targets” and “time ran out.” (page 280)

This chapter covers the end of the Clinton administration to the transition into the Bush administration. Clearly, the 9/11 plot was in full force, many of the hijackers already in the US learning to fly or preparing their missions. The commission continues to reiterate Richard Clarke’s enthusiasm for attacking al’Qaeda as soon as possible. Such demands fell on deaf ears in both administrations. However, the report claims that the Clinton administration did its best:

“President Clinton was deeply concerned about Bin Ladin. He and his national security advisor, Samuel ‘Sandy’ Berger, ensured they had a special daily pipeline of reports feeding them the latest updates on Bin Ladin’s reported location. In public, President Clinton spoke repeatedly about the threat of terrorism, referring to terrorist training camps but saying little about Bin Ladin and nothing about al Qaeda. He explained to us that this was deliberate—intended to avoid enhancing Bin Ladin’s stature by giving him unnecessary publicity.” (page 191)

Around late 1999, Jordanian and American officials each captured al’Qaeda suspects. The arrests in Jordan helped to thwart a large millennium attack, while the arrest of a man on the Canadian border – with a trunk full of explosives – was a lucky catch (“It appears that the heightened sense of alert at the national level played no role in [the] arrest.” (page 196)). Unfortunately, these arrests did nothing to excite either administration into facing al’Qaeda head-on. Nonetheless, Richard Clarke’s staff warned after the events in Jordan that “[f]oreign terrorist sleeper cells are present in the US and attacks in the US are likely.” (page 196) Later, Clarke concluded:

” . . .U.S. disruption efforts thus far had ‘not put too much of a dent’ in Bin Ladin’s network. If the United States wanted to ‘roll back’ the threat, disruption would have to proceed at ‘a markedly different tempo.'” (page 199)

The next attempts to disrupt al’Qaeda were diplomatic. The President and a few cabinet members repeatedly visited Pakistan in 2000 with the hope of convincing its government to lessen its support of the Taliban. Pakistan’s repeated pronouncements of help never went into action, for as Madeleine Albright pointed out, the US had “few carrots to offer.” (page 200).

The government also focused on terrorist financing…sort of:

“Treasury regulators, as well as U.S. financial institutions, were generally focused on finding and deterring or disrupting the vast flows of U.S. currency generated by drug trafficking and high-level international fraud.” (page 201).

During these years, the CIA gradually received more funds for counter-terrorism operations. Unfortunately, symptomatic of any large bureaucracy, the OMB reported that “CIA spending on counterterrorism from its baseline budget had shown almost no increase.” (page 201) Continue reading “Notes on Chapter 6 of the 9/11 Report”

The same day Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry argued for the need to import prescription drugs, the acting FDA commissioner (appointed by the Bush administration, who is against importation) vaguely warned that imported prescription drugs are a terror threat:

“Cues from chatter” gathered around the world are raising concerns that terrorists might try to attack the domestic food and drug supply, particularly illegally imported prescription drugs, acting Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Lester M. Crawford says.

Remember: the administration never uses the fear of terror for political ends.

On weekdays (at about 10am EST), the Department of Defense releases a pdf file with updated casualty information from Iraq and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the url changes on a daily basis, so linking to it is difficult. No longer. Check out “Daily DoD Casualty Release” on the Casualties in Iraq page or bookmark this link. Unless the DoD changes how they name the pdf file, this link should work from now on.