In light of the tenth year anniversary of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, I thought it fitting to take a look at contributing factors leading up to that day and stimulate some discussion on how far we have or have not come to mitigate and respond to a similar attack.

According to the 9/11 Commission Report, they concluded the attacks revealed four kinds of failures on our part: in imagination, policy, capabilities and management.

Imagination: Imagination is not a gift associated with bureaucracies. If a contributing factor in the success of the attacks was the inability of our massive government machinery to fathom the threat from a band of tribal zealots in the mountains of Afghanistan, why would we conclude that the answer would be create an entirely new layer of bureaucracy called the Department of Homeland Security?

Policy: The existing mechanisms for handling terrorist attacks had been trial and punishment.  The Actions of al Qaeda fit neither category.  Our existing policy proved ineffective when we found the threat had no territory, citizens or assets that could be readily threatened, overwhelmed or destroyed.  (Also a testament to lack of imagination within our bureaucracies.) We knew the Taliban offered al Qaeda sanctuary in Afghanistan and the United States warned the Taliban in 1998, again late in 1999, once more in the fall of 2000 and in the summer of 2001 that they would be held responsible for further attacks by Bin Ladin on U.S. interests.  Repeating a warning does not work when raising children and obviously was a poor strategy against al Qaeda. It was concluded that killing Bin Ladin would have an impact on al Qaeda, but not stop the threat. The best option would be to end the Taliban’s offer of Afghanistan as a base of operations for al Qaeda.  Taking this type of military action against al Qaeda at this point was deemed disproportionate to the threat, especially in light of challenging domestic issues within the United States.  If policy makers were distracted September 11, 2001 from making hard decisions, we can conclude the folly we witnessed in dealing with the financial security of the United States means they are similarly distracted today.

Capabilities: Government agencies sometimes display a tendency to match capabilities to mission by defining away the hardest part of their job.  Identifying and trying to fix obvious (if imagination is encouraged) threats that are viewed as costly, controversial or disruptive are not wise to career longevity.

Management: Information was not shared, sometimes inadvertently and sometimes due to legal misunderstandings or lost in the divide between foreign and domestic agencies; analysis not pooled and effective operations not launched are symptoms of the government’s inability to adapt how it manages new challenges of the 21st century.  Imagine you check into a hospital for a bypass operation. You are surrounded by technology, extremely intelligent, skilled and well-meaning professionals that all understand how to do their piece of ensuring your stay goes well but the one piece missing is the attending physician to oversee your care.  Think back to recent exercises you have attended with various branches of federal government; did they all seem to cooperate and work like a team to achieve the goal established by command?

I would like to think our preparedness has progressed over the last ten years. Certainly we have seen huge sums of money spent, massive bureaucracies created, seen tons of toothpaste and other liquids and gels seized at airports and witnessed the best of our military and they have paid a precious price for all of us.  My conclusion is that the old adage is true, all response is local and New York came up with the best terrorist disruption strategy with their “if you see something, say something” campaign.   I am curious if you think we are better off than we were ten years ago.