In sum, the domestic agencies never mobilized in response to the threat. They did not have direction, and did not have a plan to institute. The borders were not hardened. Transportation systems were not fortified. Electronic surveillance was not targeted against a domestic threat. State and local law enforcement were not marshaled to augment the FBI's efforts. The public was not warned. The terrorists exploited deep institutional failings within our government. The question is whether extra vigilance might have turned up an opportunity to disrupt the plot. -9/11 Commission Report.
September 11, 2001 heralded a new and perilous era for the United States. The Al Qaida network's coordinated attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon dramatically shifted America's approach to the threat of terrorism and shattered all of our preconceptions about our own security. In the immediate aftermath of that day, we sought answers to questions that seemed objective enough in their delivery—prime among them: How could these events have happened? Why had we allowed the attacks on our homeland to occur? The third and final question was also the most pressing: how could we prevent terrorists from attacking us again?
During the weeks that followed September 11th, a surge of official studies, National Security Council meetings, decision and info memoranda, executive orders and presidential directives were ordered to focus on these essential questions, culminating in the rushed creation of the Office of Homeland Security (OHS), the domestic counterpart to the National Security Council. Governor Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania was selected to head the office as the nation's first Homeland Security Advisor. The next nine months would witness a governmental reorganization on a scale not seen since President Truman signed The National Security Act of 1947, creating the National Security Council and the Department of Defense. These were heady and turbulent days for all, but we quickly learned that the questions we faced were not at all as clear-cut or objective as they had appeared. Soon, it was these very questions that sparked an unprecedented national debate that continues today.
The turbulence in Washington was reinforced—and perhaps explained—by the realization that the United States was now indeed at war. The parallels to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor nearly sixty years previous were inescapable. We had been struck on our own shores. 2973 people were killed suddenly and without provocation. Our enemy was clearly identified: the Al Qaida network was led by a Saudi national who we also had come to know well during the 1990's and whose sponsorship of terrorism against the United States was well-established. With the first attack on the World Trade Center, Al Qaida had demonstrated a global reach that extended inside America's own borders, but never before with such devastating effect. The forensics of how the attack had occurred would be the subject of an extensive investigation ultimately captured in the published findings of the 9-11 Commission, as well as a cascading assortment of books, articles and documentaries.
It was an emotionally charged time. President Bush, Congress and the American people sought long-term solutions and expansive programs to defend the homeland. In the immediate term, however, the United States focused on the question of how we could prevent terrorist attacks in the future.
The Global War on Terror was the resounding response to this most fundamental of questions. Given the scope and devastating effect of the 9-11 attacks, there was a broad consensus that the previous practice of launching cruise missile attacks on training camps from afar would no longer suffice either as a punitive measure, or as a means to deter future attacks. On October 7, 2001, with the code name "Operation Enduring Freedom," allied forces invaded Afghanistan in a series of lightning air and ground raids on Taliban and Al Qaida strongholds. In quick order, a new government was installed in Kabul and set on a path towards democracy.
In Washington, governmental change was nearly as dramatic. Growing demands on Capitol Hill to create a new cabinet post that would assimilate most of the homeland defense functions of our government into one executive department reflected an emerging sea-change in public opinion, as well as the political expediency of compelling organizational change on a sitting presidential administration. Predictably, the Bush Administration initially rejected the idea. But as America's exposure to the homeland security debate broadened, public opinion on homeland security began to evolve and the political tide that would force such a decision became increasingly pronounced. The planning for the creation of a cabinet post for homeland security began in the West Wing in the spring of 2002—coincidentally at around the time HSPD-3 was signed. The calls for organizational reshuffling and consolidation had quickly overshadowed the imperative for procedural and cultural changes for our government and society.
The reorganization was spearheaded by Senior Director for Policy and Planning, Richard Falkenrath. The decision to create the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would not be publicly announced until the summer of 2002. Simultaneously, a series of terror threats were being communicated to the American public by Attorney General Ashcroft, FBI Director Mueller and Governor Ridge. Without an established framework for public warning of terrorist threats, these sweeping announcements were made awkwardly and with a great measure of internal frustration. Predictably, each terror alert was greeted with withering criticism from the media and the public for the lack of specificity in detailing the source of the information or the intended targets.
As the Staff Director for the Office of Homeland Security, I witnessed these momentous events first hand. During the four months following September 11th, Governor Ridge and Attorney General Ashcroft delivered the terror warnings to the American people from a seat near the entrance of a cramped and crowded White House Press Briefing Room. On each occasion, their frustration in presenting these terror warnings without any real framework was apparent. In December, 2001, with the approval of Governor Ridge, work began on a threat advisory system to address this void. Over the next several months, the Office of Homeland Security worked across Federal, State and local lines to create a universally viable system of public warning. Our goal was to create a functional and comprehensive national incident management system with interoperable sub-components.
In March, 2002, the President approved Homeland Security Presidential Directive-3 establishing the Homeland Security Advisory System (HSAS). It was a necessary and vital first step to an effective system of public warning. A full menu of programs and presidential directives designed to complete the picture was drawn up and presented to the President in July 2002, but only a fraction of the intended sub-components required to create an effective strategy were ever approved. The White House viewed terrorism as a unique interactive challenge that required a framework that each of the States, at a minimum, could adopt and build upon. The Homeland Security Advisory System was constructed in cooperation with each State. Each of the States and Territories of the United States adopted the HSAS and tailored the system to their own needs.
Since September 11, 2001, the need to improve and further develop public warning systems has received wide lip service, but little else. Because it resulted in the loss of an entire U.S. city, Hurricane Katrina is perhaps the most glaring illustration of our nation's collective failure to effectively warn. The harshest reality of all, however, is that these national disasters could have been mitigated—and possibly prevented altogether—with a national strategy of public warning. The United States has many systems of public warning—the NOAA weather radio, the Emergency Alert System, the Homeland Security Advisory System, earthquake and tsunami alert systems—but they are disparate and not synchronized. We have no foundation or basis to link our public warning systems. Establishing a system of public warning cannot be achieved without an operational strategy. Bureaucratic strategies, while commonplace and prolific in their prescriptions, are of limited value because they cannot be easily put into practice. Good operational strategies, on the other hand, are difficult to craft because they must be guided by coherent policy and often require organizational cultures that make decisions and act quickly. A strategy to warn the public of terrorist attacks requires a full array of operational, informational and technical systems in order for it to be effective in the long-term.
Currently, such a strategy does not exist.
Given the rhetoric of the day, such a notion seems inconceivable. Although developing a coherent strategy is very difficult to achieve in practice, this omission can nonetheless be corrected. In posts that follow, I'll explore those issues to determine how a strategy of public warning can be constructed with leadership at the federal level, and with the cooperation of state, local and corporate stakeholders.
Lacking deliberate, integrated strategies to warn of, respond to and recover from terrorist attacks, the United States will remain reliant on current ad hoc systems that define our current homeland defense effort—and we will remain as vulnerable to domestic terrorism as we were prior to September 11, 2001. We will continue to react to rumors of catastrophic threats or worse, to the attacks themselves. Any strategy must be proactive—and whenever possible, preemptive—in its capabilities if it is to be truly effective. Facing a focused and broadly arrayed terrorist network, disparate and reactive systems are no substitute for effective strategy; and indeed, they may even further contribute to our overall vulnerability as a nation. Creating a preemptive strategy requires a "system-of-systems" that connects what are currently complex and disparate homeland security, intelligence and public warning systems.
Effective partnerships between the federal government and state, local and corporate leaders are crucial not only to the effectiveness of a public warning strategy, but to the process of developing it. Building upon these relationships requires effective information sharing systems and inter-agency processes that are founded on trust and confidence. Duncan Campbell, good friend and former Chief-of-Staff for the Department of Homeland Security, agreed that creating an operational strategy of public warning was possible, but stated pointedly, "it would require the buy-in of all of the state, local and corporate leaders." Another friend of mine, Ann Scott Tyson, who is also the Washington Post's Senior Pentagon Correspondent, agreed that a public warning strategy was needed, but "for it to be effective in the long-term, would require a concerted public education campaign, once developed."
The primary challenges in crafting a public warning strategy fall into five broad categories:
• Political
• Organizational
• Cultural
• Procedural; and
• Technical.
The same categories apply in implementing the strategy. I'll identify these challenges and obstacles and recommend methods to overcome them at each juncture—from development to implementation. To identify the main obstacles to effective public warning, I'll use the examples of the U.S. Influenza Pandemic in 1918, the Anthrax mail attacks in 2001, Hurricane Katrina and two notional terrorism-based scenarios. Deriving the most compelling lessons from these and other notable events, systems and scenarios, in future posts I'll apply them in constructing a strategic model for public warning.
Public warning will also be reviewed with the presumption that comprehensive intelligence and surveillance capability and vulnerability analysis must be the foundation of effective public warning for terrorist threats. Done properly, the protection of national infrastructure stands to benefit most from a deliberate strategy of public warning. If crafted wisely and tailored specifically to each sector of our national infrastructure, a strategy of public warning would not only be effective in deterring or preempting terrorist attacks, but could also have the very desirable effect of providing substantial cost savings to government, industry and conceivably, to consumers as well.
The questions we asked ourselves as a nation on September 11, 2001—and they are the same questions I'll attempt to address in future posts: "How can we prevent terrorists from attacking us again? How can we manage the consequences of terrorist attacks when they occur? How can we be better informed of terrorist threats in the future?
Your comments are welcome.
Photograph: The Flag, by Luca Laeche
