MSNBC show
Alan Keyes is Making Sense
Alan KeyesFebruary 18, 2002
ALAN KEYES, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, I'm Alan Keyes. Welcome to MAKING SENSE.
Tonight, we're going to begin a discussion of one of the most important and sensitive questions that faces America in the wake of the September 11 attacks. And right after those attacks took place, I think it was perfectly understandable that faced with this horrifying tragedy, and also with the necessity of making sure that the world understood that we are a people united and strong — I understand why we would have postponed the discussion of one of the most important questions that has to come out of September 11, and that's a question of why?
After all, on that terrible day, we lost one of the major symbols of America's achievement in the world, we saw an attack against the Pentagon, which is the symbol of our security. And that kind of a breach of our national security, after many years in which we have spent billions, indeed hundreds of billions of dollars on defense, on national security, on national intelligence, I think somewhere in the back of all our minds, there has been a question since that day of just what it was that went wrong with our national security system.
Well, tonight, we're going to be talking about that, asking ourselves the tough question, who dropped the ball? Were there, in fact, deficiencies in our national security preparations that left us vulnerable to the kind of attack we saw against the World Trade Center? And of course there's been a lot of fassled talk as if this terrible talk was something new that introduced us to a phenomenon we hadn't experienced before, but, in fact, we have been dealing with the threat of terrorism for some decades in this country, stretching all the way back to the 70s. We know that there was an attack in 1983 on our Marine barracks in Lebanon, the Khobar Towers attack. We understand that, we know that we had witnessed attacks during the Clinton years, against our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, as well as the attack on the USS Cole.
This kind of an attack obviously, and the fact that there were in the world terrorist networks that were out to do us harm, was no news. That it should strike so hard at a domestic target and that in spite of all the millions and all the seeming sophistication, technologically and otherwise of our defenses, this relatively primitive method of attack would break through, I think that stunned us all. And it's left us with a lot of heart searching to do. And I don't think we should take it as unusual that we'd have that kind of an impulse. After Pearl Harbor, for instance, there were a lot of investigations that took place. And people felt that they had to address the issue of exactly what had gone wrong. And that's necessary, in fact, if we're going to face the future. So, tonight, we're going to be looking at some of the key questions that are involved in that issue.
We're going to look at the question of whether or not there was, in fact, something that was amiss. And whether we can fix what's broken if we don't take a good, hard look at what went wrong. If we don't ask the tough questions that need to be asked and answered about our preparedness or lack thereof. We need to know whether this was a failure of intelligence, as has been talked about in many newspaper articles or was there a lack of coordination between agencies so information we had was not looked at and properly understood in its overall context or were we suffering from some combination of both of these deficiencies?
And finally, of course, and most relevant, is anything being done and will it be enough? Obviously, these are questions that are being raised in serious quarters now. Just recently, obviously, we saw the announcement of hearings that will be held by a joint intelligence committee in the Congress. House and Senate getting together to take a serious look at this. Those hearings will probably start up in some weeks. We'll have Richard Shelby, who is the number two on the Senate side on the Intelligence Committee, he'll be with us later in this program to talk about the hearings and the kind of issues they will be getting into.
But up front tonight, we're joined by Frank Gaffney, the president of the Center for Security Policy. He's a man of great experience, was formerly the assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan administration. He is someone I have known for many years, I greatly respect his intelligence, his knowledge, his experience on these issues of national security. He recently wrote a piece for the “Washington Times,” entitled intelligence postmortem, taking a look at these very questions.
Frank, welcome to MAKING SENSE.
FRANK GAFFNEY, CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY: Thank you very much, Alan Pleasure to be back with you.
KEYES: Well, thank you for taking the time tonight. We're trying to broach this subject. Obviously, it is one that has to be done sensitively, and with some care, but it's also a question where some answers are needed if we're to build well for the future.
As you look back on September 11, and what preceded in the years before, what is your sense of what contributed to what was obviously a serious breach of our national security on that day?
GAFFNEY: Well, first of all, I think that it's absolutely essential to say up front that the kind of threat we faced on September 11, it was very difficult to know the particulars of and to intercept before it happened. It's not to say it was impossible, it's just to say it was hard. Having said that, I think that a number of conditions, a number of operational practices and priorities made us more vulnerable to that kind of attack than we should have been, and then we can afford to be in the future. And specifically, I'd mention three. There are a number of them. But three that sort of, I believe, are sort of cross cutting from the Clinton administration in particular.
One was a sort of subordination of honest intelligence to a certain degree of political correctness on the part of the civilian leadership, the masters, if you will, of the administration. A second was a lower priority associated with human intelligence, particularly from humans who may have had somewhat unsavory backgrounds, but who knew how to get us the information we needed. And third, and this is critically important, Alan, was that we failed, I believe for not only the Clinton period, but for really several decades before that, to pay the kind of attention to domestic subversion. The operation within our country of people who wish to do us harm, including giving law enforcement the tools that it needed to monitor their behavior and their conduct and their plans and all of these things taken together with other issues, as I say, that could be discussed at greater length and on. We had vulnerabilities we shouldn't have, and that again, we cannot afford to persist in having in the future.
KEYES: Well, I have heard and read a lot about human intelligence area, and the fact that really I think starting back in the Carter years, there seemed to be a tendency to think we could substitute some kind of technology for a serious infrastructure of human intelligence. I think there was also an apparent uneasiness, perhaps, with some of the kinds of people that you have to deal with in order to get this sort of information. Were these contributing factors and if so what can be done about this? Obviously, this is an area where sometimes you have to get into unsavory gutters in order to find out what's going on there.
GAFFNEY: Yes. Well, if the threat is emanating from unsavory gutters, you absolutely have to be able to get into them. Now, this isn't something that started with the Clinton administration. You know, going back I know at least to the Carter administration and probably before, you had an intoxicating sense that if only we had a better picture-taking satellite or a better electronic collection device or better, more powerful computers to assimilate all this data, we wouldn't need to rely on human beings and the unfortunate reality is if you're talking about cells of terrorists who understand how imperative it is for their success to maintain the most intense secretiveness and compartmentalization, you have got to have people in place in order to get at them. And to understand before they do it, what it is they're going to do in order to give them a chance to stop them.
KEYES: In reference to the other two questions you raised, I, and I think others that have been reading the accounts in the press and so forth, have come away with a distinct impression that, yes, we needed more information. But that even the information we had wasn't really processed in a way that allowed anybody to think through the whole picture it might have represented. Was there a failure, not only in the intelligence area, but among the other agencies responsible for some piece of this puzzle, including the INS, the FBI and others, a failure to coordinate. To have the kind of exchange and the kind of informational interplay that would have allowed somebody to take a look at the larger picture these pieces formed?
GAFFNEY: Well, again, going back to what I said at the outset, it is the classic problem of intelligence that there's always a lot more information, what's called noise, as opposed to really high-quality valuable signals and it's differentiating between those that's the name of the game. We probably won't know the answer to those questions, and I think we do need to know the answer to those question, unless there really is a rigorous and independent assessment of what did go wrong.
We've got George Tenet, the director of Central Intelligence saying he doesn't think there was a failure. And now this new joint House-Senate intelligence committee investigation has been turned over to one of George Tenet's closest friends and most trusted subordinates, a fellow by the name of Brett Snider (ph). I'm not sure we're going to find out the answers to these sorts of questions and if we don't, I fear that we're not going to learn the lessons and avoid repeating the kinds of problems that gave rise to September 11 in the future.
KEYES: Now, in all fairness, because I know that with this kind of a background, with the difficulties that would have come from years before, the Bush administration was in office for only a few months. But in terms of putting together the kind of coordination of effort that was needed amongst these agencies, how would you assess the work that was done by the National Security Council staff, the National Security adviser in the run up to this? It seemed to me, I say this quite honestly, that given what had come out of the Clinton years, there didn't seem to be a big sense of urgency about dealing with this kind of a difficulty.
GAFFNEY: Well, I think during the Clinton years, you did have that sort of political correctness over lay going on. You didn't have people pursuing, as they should have, the opportunities to stop terrorists because that might have led us into difficulties with, say, our friends in Saudi Arabia.
You didn't have people intercepting terrorists or making the use of information that we had, because you did have this sense that domestic surveillance was a no-no. These are problems that I hope, again, the new administration, even before September 11, was taking more seriously. But certainly needs to now and I think is.
KEYES: Well, that's the question I was asking, though, because I think that a lot of folks looking at, I would have to assess a big share of the blame in the years before the Bush administration began. But I do believe that one has to be fair in looking at the question of whether or not, because I felt a certain sense of urgency myself when the administrations changed, that there were big holes left in various aspects of our national security and our defense, that needed to be remedied as a matter of first priority with the new administration coming in.
I guess I'm just asking what your sense was of those first months and the urgency that was attached to addressing the deficiencies that had been left by those previous years?
GAFFNEY: Yes. I think it was a mixed bag, to be honest. I think that the Bush administration was still getting its sea legs, and in particular, just as one example, the defense budget was simply not being provided with the resources that it needed prior to September 11. I think it's getting a fair slug of them now, not all, but some. But it was not during those first eight or nine months, and I think that was contributing to a compounding of the horrible legacy that President Clinton had bequeathed his successor. And, again, this has happened to us time and time — as you know as a student of history, Alan, this is the lot in life we seem to face here where we constantly are sacrificing national security, because we didn't see some imminent threat. Only to discover, too late, that we face it and we have to throw money at the problem and lives.
KEYES: And I think that is a difficulty, too, and that brings us to the question of congressional responsibility and years in which there were folks fighting against the increased resources needed in this area and that's something, though, Frank, we're going to have to leave for further discussion.
GAFFNEY: Look forward to it.
KEYES: We're obviously scratching the surface of this sensitive and critical topic. But as these hearings come forward, let's get back together and talk more about this. It will be of great importance to people in this country. Thanks joining us tonight.
GAFFNEY: Thank you.
KEYES: I really appreciate your taking the time.
Next, of course, we're going to get to the heart of the matter with a panel of folks who have some expertise in this critical and important area. Plus, our open phone line segment will be coming up shortly. Call me at 1-866-keyes-usa, 1-866-keyes-usa, with whatever is on your mind.
But first, do you think this makes sense? Here's what Larry Wortzell (ph), the director of Asian studies at the Heritage Foundation told the “Washington Times,” in advance of President Bush's trip to Asia.
“What was left unsaid in the State of the Union Address is that China is a major supplier of technologies, missiles, missile components to all three axis of evil states. If the president is going to stick to his principles in the war on terrorism, he has to state he will not look the other way. China is a proliferator and he can't ignore that.”
Now there are some folks who say that on his trip to Beijing, the president doesn't intend to give a high priority to this critical question. Hmm. Does that make sense?
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM J. CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have had some success with human intelligence. We need more of it. We need to do whatever is necessary and, yes, we need to do more to get more human intelligence. In the end, it's very difficult to get all this done with satellites and tapping of telephones and breaking into computers. You need to have people on the ground in the area if you're going to nail these people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: I have got to tell you, I kind of wish that President Clinton had had the intelligence to see the importance of that kind of intelligence before September 11 while he was still in office. Unhappily, that was not the case.
I'm Alan Keyes. Coming up in our next half hour, we're going to talk to Senator Richard Shelby, the vice chair of the intelligence committee. He is going to be deeply involved in the Congressional hearings, the joint hearings, that are going to take place into the terrorist attack.
But first, we're going to continue our conversation here about this serious and critical and sensitive question: Who dropped the ball on September 11? Are we looking at a situation that was the result of some deficiencies in our national security structure? If we're not willing to look hard and get answers to the question of what went wrong, are we, in fact, going to be able to correct it? Will we be able to trust the responses that we're coming up with? Obviously you can't fix a problem if you're not willing to understand what the problem is.
Here to help us get to the heart of the matter with respect to these issues, we have Clifford May from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, an organization created in reaction to the events surrounding September 11; James Dunnigan, a military analyst and author of the book “How To Make War; and Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor of the “Nation” magazine. Welcome to MAKING SENSE and thank you all for being with us tonight.
I want to start, Clifford, with your perspective on this. Looking at September 11, asking the question that we have put in pretty bald terms, who dropped the ball? Why are we looking at the results of some deficiencies that had been prepared over the years? What is your sense of what they were?
CLIFFORD MAY, FOUNDATION FOR THE DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: Alan, it was a system wide failure. It was a failure in many ways, a failure to conceptualize the problem, but also as you discussed a little bit, the failure was probably gravest at the CIA.
The CIA, by the mid '90s, was pretty much out of the spying game, as it would be defined. That is to say that we were not recruiting foreign agents. We didn't have, for example, in our London bureau, a single Arabic speaker. Our European allies also dropped the ball. They weren't doing the kind of intelligence work with human intelligence sources that you need to do, recruiting agents, running agents, finding out what's going on on the ground.
The satellites won't do it for you. They can tell you if there's a missile on the ground. They can't tell you if somebody plans to steal a jet plane and crash it into a building. That takes people. So from all those ways, it wasn't being done and we dropped the ball, basically, system wide, is a simple answer. But the CIA, that's the one that has to be repaired urgently. It's in very bad shape. And I think there is a question about whether it is going to be repaired the way it needs to be repaired.
KEYES: Katrina vanden Heuvel, do you agree with that or do you have a different perspective? Do you think that we were looking at the results of some deficiencies over the years? And what, if so, do you think they were?
KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL, EDITOR, “THE NATION”: Well, I think this is an agency, the CIA, locked in a Cold War mentality, it isn't equipped to deal with the threats of today: terrorism, drug trafficking, international crime, environmental threats.
But I think, you know, more important is the danger now of the, quote, “solutions”. To throw money at the intelligence community is ludicrous. The intelligence community has 80 percent higher budget than it did at the height of the Cold War and this discussion Mr. Gaffney led of political correctness is crazy also because to unleash the agency to work with thugs, this is a myth that there's a ban on working with thugs at the agency and also to begin covert operations as if this is a triumph of the agency blinds us to the fact that the agency funded the mujahideen, who — which led to the Taliban, which we are trying to overthrow and also, you know, things like overthrowing a modestly left government in the '50s in Iran leading to the Ayatollah, Iran is now, quote, “one of the countries of the axis of evil.”
KEYES: Katrina, if I can ask you a question though, to follow-up before we get our first reaction from James, the sense that I get from what you're saying, though, seems to express a kind of discomfort with the covert operations, with the kind of unsavory associations that resulted from it. Isn't that the very sort of hesitancy that may have contributed to our unwillingness to face the realities of what we need to do in human intelligence terms?
VANDEN HEUVEN: I would argue that the failure is primarily one of lack of coordination among agencies which already are equipped with adequate powers to combat terrorism. If the FBI had looked more carefully at the list of those associated with terrorism taking flying lessons, or if our defense budget, which is essentially part of our intelligence community budget, had been used not to favor a national missile defense program, which Mr. Gaffney has spent his life supporting, and that $65 billion over the last decade had been used to guards our borders more effectively or provide for airport security, I would argue we might have had a better chance in combating the tragedy of September 11.
KEYES: Let me get to James Dunnigan before I take the chair's prerogative and address one or two thoughts to that question. But James Dunnigan, what is your sense? Are we looking at a failure here on September 11 within our national security system? What do you think was the nature of it, if so? And what are the remedies?
JAMES DUNNIGAN, MILITARY ANALYST: Well, from looking at, it's politics as usual. But we have got to keep in mind who the CIA and the FBI work for. They work for the president. Who pays them? The Congress pays them. If anybody wants to survive, wants to have a career in the CIA or the FBI, they know that they have to, A: listen to what the president tells them to do and listen to any criticism they get from Congress because Congress approves their budget.
Now this has been going on not just this time, but ever since the end of World War II, ever since the CIA was created, ever since J. Edgar Hoover, you know, got bounced out of the FBI. We had these kinds of failures during the Vietnam War. There was a big blow-up. There was a big house cleaning in the CIA when people in the CIA went public with the fact that the Department of Defense was cooking the numbers over in Vietnam and a lot of other nasty stuff we'd rather not remember.
Same thing happened during the Cold War. I had a lot of arguments with people I know in the CIA over about they were analyzing the Soviet Union. I point it out in my books many times over that it was basically, you know, it wasn't 10-feet tall. It was a giant with feet of clay. And, of course, we all found out that to be very true in the late '80s and the early '90s.
KEYES: Now, if I can try and understand what you're saying, though, because one of the criticisms that I think does come from, say, Frank Gaffney, who I was talking to before, had to do with the politicization of intelligence, the unwillingness to be frank in one's assessment because you're trying to play up to whatever might be the prevailing political atmosphere. Is that the same as what you're talking about here?
DUNNIGAN: Yes. And the worst news I have to deliver is that this is not going to go away anytime soon. Already, we're seeing the effects of September 11 starting to wear off. Everybody was willing to do whatever needed to be done right after September 11. But already you're hearing people say, well, maybe we shouldn't go this far. You have got to remember that if you get into the human intelligence in parts of the world where Americans stand out, this didn't happen during the Cold War, we were fighting a gentleman's war with the Russians, but if you send people into South America, into the Middle East, one of them gets captured, we have a big mess, the media jumps all over it and Congress get very upset and the president is under a lot of pressure. So what is the easiest thing to do? Back off.
KEYES: Now Clifford, though, one of the problems I see in that kind of an analysis, very often, in order to get into these kinds of areas, you really have to make use of folks who already live there. And that's what I was thinking, Katrina, when you were raising the question a minute ago who we had been associated with in Afghanistan. What happened in the aftermath. The wisdom of hindsight is wonderful, but the truth is if you want information from the gutter, you have got to get down into the gutter to get it.
(CROSSTALK)
VANDEN HEUVEN: Excuse me, what kind of information did we get? We now have stinger weapons provided to the mujahideen which are part of the Taliban. What kind of information was that?
KEYES: Clifford?
MAY: You're exactly right. You have to know about intentions and the only way you do that is actually not with your own American agents. They can't get down far enough. They have to recruit local agents who speak a language, who can get in. They have to recruit spies, traitors sometimes, people who can get into these organizations like al Qaeda and come back. They weren't doing that, we weren't doing that kind of work in the '90s. We left that out. Neither were the Europeans.
The only people who continued to recruit agents who spoke Arabics, to recruit agents in these terrorist organizations, frankly, were the Israelis. They had no choice because for the Israelis, this was a matter of survival. But I hoped we've waked up and now we realize this is about our survival as well at this point. Katrina vanden Heuvel says the problem is a Cold War mentality. Quite the opposite. It is the post-Cold War mentality that we don't really have any grave dangers out there that we can continue swatting mosquitoes and we never need to drain the swamp. That is the problem.
KEYES: And I think in a way, Katrina, I have to say that I sense in what you are saying, the kind of mentality that in the course of the '90s, for instance, even after the Clinton folks started to realize, as Clinton was just admitting that human intelligence was importance and we need to do some more of it, they actually found staunch opposition in their own party from folks who by and large were expressing the very kind of sensitivities that you are representing on the program here tonight.
Are we going to have the same kind of expressions keeping us from doing what's necessary to defend ourselves in the months and years ahead now that we've seen the results of this kind of neglect firsthand in New York City and in Washington?
VANDEN HEUVEN: Well, we are at war with a force of terrorism and we are at war, attempting to uphold values that this country stands for. But I have to say just pragmatically, the so-called ban on assassinations and your lamenting about what, you know, people attacking the church commission in the '70s for attempting to limit the CIA, which it did not, or legislation attempting to limit working with thugs, it's just not true. Those limitations, one, on working with thugs, it's just means the CIA at a higher level has to support that activity.
And what has the ban on assassinations led to? If you look at Fidel Castro, he is the longest running leader in this hemisphere and the agency tried to assassinate him more than any other leader. I would simply argue that it is a Cold War mentality because you do rely on these satellites which are ineffective. You may need human intelligence, but people who work in the agency argue that the human intelligence you may need may just be good political analysis out of embassies, that you have to focus on closed societies, on terrorist operations, but that the moment the agencies spread across the globe is ineffective in its human intelligence, not for the reasons you're saying.
(CROSSTALK)
DUNNIGAN: You have got to keep in mind that everybody's afraid of this thing blowing back in their faces. We cannot underestimate the fear around the Beltway for some operation, you know, some dirty operation in hindsight blowing up in somebody's face and somebody's career going down in flames. I mean, these people do this for a living. They're not kamikazes. They want to survive.
KEYES: The great problem that I hear in all of this is that somebody, in order to cover their behinds, is in a situation where they are hesitant to do what is necessary in order to make sure that the American people are covered when it comes to a threat like this.
One final issue I'd like to get into — we're running short of time — but some of the information that appeared to be on the table before September 11 was in the hands of the intelligence agencies. There were other bits and pieces of information in the hands of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the FBI, other agencies of this kind, including the Coast Guard.
What about the coordination problem? Weren't we looking at least in part at a problem where these pieces were not put together in a proper inter agency process where folks with the kind of intelligence that was needed could look at them and try to see, sort out what was important, what was not, see the big picture? The coordination is supposed to be done, I think, within the National Security Council and the National Security Advisers Shop. Don't we have to look there as well, Clifford?
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: Alan, you absolutely do. And just consider if you have got a suspected foreign terrorist, the CIA deals with them abroad, then that terrorist can get from the State Department through the consulate general his visa. He comes here and the FBI is supposed to take over, but it is the INS who is responsible for his movements.
Now, can all that be coordinated? Yes, it can. Was it? Absolutely not. That wasn't the case. And a lot — just to be fair, money was spent during the Clinton administration, but it was spent on things like medical sectors and concrete barriers, hardening defenses. And you'll never beat terrorism that way. You have to go out and find it.
And one of the things that was not done, for example, we knew that...
KEYES: Cliff? Cliff?
MAY: I'm sorry. Go ahead.
KEYES: I have to interrupt you. We are running out of time. I want to thank you all for coming in this evening to really begin this discussion because I think we are going to be revisiting these issues...
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KEYES: Welcome back to MAKING SENSE.
This evening, we've been talking about a question both difficult and sensitive.
We all want to be pulling together as we respond to the threat of terrorism, and yet how can we know that we're doing an effective job unless we're willing to take a look at what led up to September 11th and get some idea of whether and who dropped the ball that led to those tragic events.
That's particularly true in terms of our national security establishment and, of course, we the people are not the only folks who will be asking that question. Our elected representatives, obviously with an oversight responsibility, will be taking the issue up in a very responsible way.
Soon to be started, there will be Intelligence Committee hearings to look specifically at the question of what kind of answer we can get with respect to the intelligence community.
We're very pleased to have for the bottom line this evening, Senator Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama. Senator Shelby is the vice chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, which will be holding those hearings, looking into these very questions.
Welcome to MAKING SENSE, Senator. Thank you for being with us.
SEN. RICHARD SHELBY (R-AL), SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE VICE CHAIR: Thank you, Alan, for having me on.
KEYES: Well, it is a difficult question, but, as we look at the events of September 11th, it's kind of hard to believe that we'll be able to deal effectively with the threat of terrorism unless we are willing to ask some hard questions about what led up to those events.
Would it be your sense that one of those questions has to do with whether we did, in fact, see a failure in our intelligence community and what kind of failure that might have been?
SHELBY: Alan, you're absolutely on point. I think we have to look back, perhaps at least to '85, and build from that, and we will in our probe. This probe, this investigation, has to be deep, and it has to be broad, and it can leave no stone unturned for it to be credible.
KEYES: Now do you think — because I know that there are some folks who — as one talks about what happened within the agencies themselves, there have been suggestions that maybe we didn't have the depth that we needed in dealing with some of the communities which are seed beds for terrorism.
But other folks point the finger and say but the intelligence community wasn't given the kind of help and support in terms of its budget, in terms of taking seriously the need for this kind of approach. They point the finger at Congress.
Do you think that that's going to be part of what we're looking at here in terms of what hppened during the '90s and what kind of people in Congress were opposing the necessary increases in funding in this area?
SHELBY: Alan, I think it could be all and part of that. There were, I believe, failures because of lack of emphasis, a lack of coordination, perhaps lack of leadership, and lack of funding. Make no mistake about it.
KEYES: And one of the areas that I think is particularly sensitive has to do with whether or not we were taking seriously the need for human intelligence. I think, as far back as the Carter years, there seemed to be a shift in emphasis during that administration, putting an emphasis on technology.
Do you think that part of our problem was an excessive reliance on technological responses that didn't give a proper emphasis to the need to maintain an infrastructure of human intelligence?
SHELBY: Alan, I do believe that to be the case. I believe that there has not been and hasn't been for a number of years enough emphasis, enough funding, enough training, enough recruiting for the human intelligence agents. We call it HUMINT, our personal intelligence agents all over the world. There's no substitute for them. Technology cannot substitute for the personal touch.
KEYES: Why do you think it's been so difficult to get a proper understanding of the critical importance of human intelligence, both within different administrations and within the Congress?
SHELBY: Well, I believe at this juncture — and we don't know all the answers, but, at this juncture, my view from my seven years — and this is my eighth year — as a member of the Intelligence Committee, there are a lot of people that have just not wanted to fund intelligence agencies, have not wanted to even deal with the NSA as it reached a critical stage of breaking down.
Also, people in the Senate have told me at times when I was moving a budget on the floor, said, “Look, why do we need the CIA?” And I said, “Gosh, we need it, and we need it — one that will work because, although the world has changed, there are more challenges out there than there's ever been bfore.”
We need a agile CIA. We need a CIA with all kinds of skills, and we're getting there. But I think we can do better, Alan.
KEYES: Do you think that one of the problems, Senator, has been that very often in intelligence, you're operating sometimes in a gray area. There have been concerns over abuses, concerns over the type of people you have to work with.
Obviously, if you're going to get information about the bad guys, sometimes you've got to deal with bad guys. Do you think there's been a lack of realism on the part of some about this?
SHELBY: Absolutely. Starting in the Clinton administration, under John Deutch when he was director of CIA, he basically said to the CIA agents around the world, “Get rid of your assets unless they belong to the Rotary Club.” I mean, of course, not literally the Rotary Club, but Boy Scouts and stuff like that.
But we all know you've got to get down where the dirt is. That FBI broke open the Mafia because they penetrated the Mafia. We've got to do the same thing all over the world. We're making headway, but we've got a long way to go, and we can get there.
But part of our inquiry is to see what does — what do the agencies need, all 13 of the intelligence agencies, in the challenge of the 21st century, especially terrorism, because if we're going to win this war, itbuilds on information, which is intelligence. We have to be better than we are today.
KEYES: Well, one of the things I noticed in a lot of the articles that have been written and folks, when they have been commenting on this — they've also, though, pointed out that we had bits and pieces of information that, if they had been assembled, might have given a picture that could have led to some better preparedness.
Was there a problem that goes beyond just intelligence gathering and that has to do with the larger issue of coordination, not just among intelligence agencies but between the agencies and other parts of the government that are part of the national security structure? Was there a coordination difficulty as well? Will you be looking into that?
SHELBY: We will. We will be looking at that, and there is a problem there. We probably gather a lot more information than we analyze or use. There are also stove pipes. There have been a lot of stove pipes. In other words, one agency doesn't deal with the other, at least not sufficiently. And we're moving in the right direction after September 11th...
KEYES: Well, some people say...
SHELBY: ... but we're not there.
KEYES: Some say that there's been a sensitivity about this particular issue because, even though one might ascribe the lack of preparedness in some ways to periods before the Bush administration, that the coordination problem is actually a problem that has to be laid at the doorstep of the National Security Council staff, the national security adviser.
Are you all going to be looking at whether there was a failure of coordination in the months running up to this?
SHELBY: Well, we're going to have to. That's part — it's going to have to be part of our probe, and we're also going to have to make some recommendations to the Congress and to the White House as to how some of these things need to be changed positively.
KEYES: Senator, I want to thank you very much for coming on at this critical time...
SHELBY: Thank you, Alan.
KEYES: ... talking to us about this critical topic. We'll be watching with interest the developments in your investigation since, obviously, a lot of things depend on it for the American people. I wish you Godspeed in your efforts. Thank you.
SHELBY: Thank you.
KEYES: Appreciate your being with us tonight.
Next, I want to hear what's on your mind on any topic in the news. Just call me at 1-866-KEYES-USA. 1-866-KEYES-USA.
You're watching MSNBC, the best news on cable.
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KEYES: Welcome back to MAKING SENSE.
I was just looking in on the chat room over here. One of the folks commented that she had thought before this terrible event that it couldn't happen here and she was naive about that.
I think that expresses, unhappily, the state of mind of all too many Americans before the attacks on September 11th. We sure have been shaken out of that lethargy now. Let's hope we can move in a constructive direction.
Now to see what's on your mind, let's go first to Jeny in Indiana.
Jeny, welcome to MAKING SENSE.
JENY: Thank you, Alan.
I've been watching the show tonight, and there's been a lot of generalities, but what I would really like to know exactly is where were our fighter pilots? Andrews Air Force Base is only 10 miles away, and I know they have two fighter squadrons there. Was there somebody who grounded them there? It just doesn't make sense.
KEYES: Well, I think that is a question that has been raised — I've noticed it in chat rooms, on the Internet, and so forth — by a lot of folks, and I think it's one of the things that needs to be looked into, overall the sense that maybe the question of our domestic air space and the defense of that air space, which, for various reasons, had been changed in its priorities over the course of the budget cycles preceding the September 11th attack, and what consequence that might have had, relevance it might have had on September 11th, as well as the question of whose responsibility it might have been, particularly to defend the Pentagon.
I've asked that question myself, not only about scrambling jet fighters, but, you know, we have technology that can take planes out of the sky from the ground, and we even shared that technology with folks in Afghanistan years ago, and you do wonder why it was not employed to better effect in defense of our own national security headquarters.
But these are, indeed, the kind of questions that will have to be looked into. We don't have the answers now.
Let's go to Tomas in Michigan.
Tomas, welcome to MAKING SENSE.
TOMAS: Thank you, Mr. Keyes. Thank you for the opportunity.
With even — my question is, with even the unprecedented intelligence gathering that Israel has failing to stop a suicide attacks over there, why is it President Bush is not politically courageous enough to control our borders now?
KEYES: Well, I'm not sure what you mean. Obviously, no matter what we do, up to a certain extent, there are going to be some of these kinds of activities that are going to slip past us.
When you are faced with the kind of result we saw on September 11th, several coordinated attacks that, as we have learned, were planned and carried out by folks who had been working at them not just for months, but for years and had been on the radar screen in various ways in some of our various intelligence agencies and others —
I think looking at that kind of picture, we're not just talking about one little terrorist act that slipped through the net. We're talking about a major and egregious breach of national security on a large scale that then has to raise questions about whether or not the system itself is in good order, and I think that's why the folks in the Congress are going to be taking a hard look at it.
Tomas, thank you for your call.
Let's go to Sam in Wisconsin.
Sam, welcome to MAKING SENSE.
SAM: Dr. Keyes, thank you.
Could you please address the legitimacy of the claim that Ariel Sharon's — prime minister of Israel, visit to the Temple Mount started the Intifada 17 months ago?
KEYES: I think the notion that that somehow started the Intifada as opposed to being the spark that was an occasion or excuse for an intensification of violent actions against Israel — that's the distinction that I would make because I think that's actually what occurred.
But then you have to ask whether or not that wasn't in the context of a strategic decision on the part of some of the folks on the Arab side to increase the intensity of their violence in order to put pressure on a government that they disliked and they would have found an excuse for it in any case.
If that, in fact, was the case, then if it hadn't been the Temple Mount, it would have been something else, but we would face the same kind of strategic result, I think.
Thank you for your call, Sam.
Let's go to Adam in California.
Adam, welcome to MAKING SENSE.
ADAM: Thank you, Dr. Keyes. I appreciate you listening to me.
My question is — I think everyone's missing the point here on the lesson of September 11th, and that is...
KEYES: Adam, you have to get quickly to the point. We're running out of time.
ADAM: OK. How you can possibly lay the blame at the foot of the Clinton administration when it was the Reagan and Bush administrations that created these monsters in the first place and their slant towards big business, which wouldn't have put any restrictions on the airlines to beef up security.
KEYES: Well, in point of fact, I don't understand how you can say we created these monsters when something like al Qaeda actually came from first the independent wealth that we saw in the hands of Osama bin Laden, then funded through Saudi networks.
I will acknowledge to you, though, that I think we have a hinge here because of the interest that some folks have in Saudi Arabia, China, and other places in money making that perhaps keeps them from allowing us to look squarely at some of the security threats that their backing for these activities may pose. But that's a question we're going to have to start taking seriously.
I want to thank you for your feedback.
Next, a personal note on President's Day. It's not a day I'm particularly fond of, and I'll tell you why.
I'll be right back.
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KEYES: If we have a day that honors all the presidents, don't we dishonor the greatest ones? That's my sense of it. See you tomorrow.
Tonight, we're going to begin a discussion of one of the most important and sensitive questions that faces America in the wake of the September 11 attacks. And right after those attacks took place, I think it was perfectly understandable that faced with this horrifying tragedy, and also with the necessity of making sure that the world understood that we are a people united and strong — I understand why we would have postponed the discussion of one of the most important questions that has to come out of September 11, and that's a question of why?
After all, on that terrible day, we lost one of the major symbols of America's achievement in the world, we saw an attack against the Pentagon, which is the symbol of our security. And that kind of a breach of our national security, after many years in which we have spent billions, indeed hundreds of billions of dollars on defense, on national security, on national intelligence, I think somewhere in the back of all our minds, there has been a question since that day of just what it was that went wrong with our national security system.
Well, tonight, we're going to be talking about that, asking ourselves the tough question, who dropped the ball? Were there, in fact, deficiencies in our national security preparations that left us vulnerable to the kind of attack we saw against the World Trade Center? And of course there's been a lot of fassled talk as if this terrible talk was something new that introduced us to a phenomenon we hadn't experienced before, but, in fact, we have been dealing with the threat of terrorism for some decades in this country, stretching all the way back to the 70s. We know that there was an attack in 1983 on our Marine barracks in Lebanon, the Khobar Towers attack. We understand that, we know that we had witnessed attacks during the Clinton years, against our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, as well as the attack on the USS Cole.
This kind of an attack obviously, and the fact that there were in the world terrorist networks that were out to do us harm, was no news. That it should strike so hard at a domestic target and that in spite of all the millions and all the seeming sophistication, technologically and otherwise of our defenses, this relatively primitive method of attack would break through, I think that stunned us all. And it's left us with a lot of heart searching to do. And I don't think we should take it as unusual that we'd have that kind of an impulse. After Pearl Harbor, for instance, there were a lot of investigations that took place. And people felt that they had to address the issue of exactly what had gone wrong. And that's necessary, in fact, if we're going to face the future. So, tonight, we're going to be looking at some of the key questions that are involved in that issue.
We're going to look at the question of whether or not there was, in fact, something that was amiss. And whether we can fix what's broken if we don't take a good, hard look at what went wrong. If we don't ask the tough questions that need to be asked and answered about our preparedness or lack thereof. We need to know whether this was a failure of intelligence, as has been talked about in many newspaper articles or was there a lack of coordination between agencies so information we had was not looked at and properly understood in its overall context or were we suffering from some combination of both of these deficiencies?
And finally, of course, and most relevant, is anything being done and will it be enough? Obviously, these are questions that are being raised in serious quarters now. Just recently, obviously, we saw the announcement of hearings that will be held by a joint intelligence committee in the Congress. House and Senate getting together to take a serious look at this. Those hearings will probably start up in some weeks. We'll have Richard Shelby, who is the number two on the Senate side on the Intelligence Committee, he'll be with us later in this program to talk about the hearings and the kind of issues they will be getting into.
But up front tonight, we're joined by Frank Gaffney, the president of the Center for Security Policy. He's a man of great experience, was formerly the assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan administration. He is someone I have known for many years, I greatly respect his intelligence, his knowledge, his experience on these issues of national security. He recently wrote a piece for the “Washington Times,” entitled intelligence postmortem, taking a look at these very questions.
Frank, welcome to MAKING SENSE.
FRANK GAFFNEY, CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY: Thank you very much, Alan Pleasure to be back with you.
KEYES: Well, thank you for taking the time tonight. We're trying to broach this subject. Obviously, it is one that has to be done sensitively, and with some care, but it's also a question where some answers are needed if we're to build well for the future.
As you look back on September 11, and what preceded in the years before, what is your sense of what contributed to what was obviously a serious breach of our national security on that day?
GAFFNEY: Well, first of all, I think that it's absolutely essential to say up front that the kind of threat we faced on September 11, it was very difficult to know the particulars of and to intercept before it happened. It's not to say it was impossible, it's just to say it was hard. Having said that, I think that a number of conditions, a number of operational practices and priorities made us more vulnerable to that kind of attack than we should have been, and then we can afford to be in the future. And specifically, I'd mention three. There are a number of them. But three that sort of, I believe, are sort of cross cutting from the Clinton administration in particular.
One was a sort of subordination of honest intelligence to a certain degree of political correctness on the part of the civilian leadership, the masters, if you will, of the administration. A second was a lower priority associated with human intelligence, particularly from humans who may have had somewhat unsavory backgrounds, but who knew how to get us the information we needed. And third, and this is critically important, Alan, was that we failed, I believe for not only the Clinton period, but for really several decades before that, to pay the kind of attention to domestic subversion. The operation within our country of people who wish to do us harm, including giving law enforcement the tools that it needed to monitor their behavior and their conduct and their plans and all of these things taken together with other issues, as I say, that could be discussed at greater length and on. We had vulnerabilities we shouldn't have, and that again, we cannot afford to persist in having in the future.
KEYES: Well, I have heard and read a lot about human intelligence area, and the fact that really I think starting back in the Carter years, there seemed to be a tendency to think we could substitute some kind of technology for a serious infrastructure of human intelligence. I think there was also an apparent uneasiness, perhaps, with some of the kinds of people that you have to deal with in order to get this sort of information. Were these contributing factors and if so what can be done about this? Obviously, this is an area where sometimes you have to get into unsavory gutters in order to find out what's going on there.
GAFFNEY: Yes. Well, if the threat is emanating from unsavory gutters, you absolutely have to be able to get into them. Now, this isn't something that started with the Clinton administration. You know, going back I know at least to the Carter administration and probably before, you had an intoxicating sense that if only we had a better picture-taking satellite or a better electronic collection device or better, more powerful computers to assimilate all this data, we wouldn't need to rely on human beings and the unfortunate reality is if you're talking about cells of terrorists who understand how imperative it is for their success to maintain the most intense secretiveness and compartmentalization, you have got to have people in place in order to get at them. And to understand before they do it, what it is they're going to do in order to give them a chance to stop them.
KEYES: In reference to the other two questions you raised, I, and I think others that have been reading the accounts in the press and so forth, have come away with a distinct impression that, yes, we needed more information. But that even the information we had wasn't really processed in a way that allowed anybody to think through the whole picture it might have represented. Was there a failure, not only in the intelligence area, but among the other agencies responsible for some piece of this puzzle, including the INS, the FBI and others, a failure to coordinate. To have the kind of exchange and the kind of informational interplay that would have allowed somebody to take a look at the larger picture these pieces formed?
GAFFNEY: Well, again, going back to what I said at the outset, it is the classic problem of intelligence that there's always a lot more information, what's called noise, as opposed to really high-quality valuable signals and it's differentiating between those that's the name of the game. We probably won't know the answer to those questions, and I think we do need to know the answer to those question, unless there really is a rigorous and independent assessment of what did go wrong.
We've got George Tenet, the director of Central Intelligence saying he doesn't think there was a failure. And now this new joint House-Senate intelligence committee investigation has been turned over to one of George Tenet's closest friends and most trusted subordinates, a fellow by the name of Brett Snider (ph). I'm not sure we're going to find out the answers to these sorts of questions and if we don't, I fear that we're not going to learn the lessons and avoid repeating the kinds of problems that gave rise to September 11 in the future.
KEYES: Now, in all fairness, because I know that with this kind of a background, with the difficulties that would have come from years before, the Bush administration was in office for only a few months. But in terms of putting together the kind of coordination of effort that was needed amongst these agencies, how would you assess the work that was done by the National Security Council staff, the National Security adviser in the run up to this? It seemed to me, I say this quite honestly, that given what had come out of the Clinton years, there didn't seem to be a big sense of urgency about dealing with this kind of a difficulty.
GAFFNEY: Well, I think during the Clinton years, you did have that sort of political correctness over lay going on. You didn't have people pursuing, as they should have, the opportunities to stop terrorists because that might have led us into difficulties with, say, our friends in Saudi Arabia.
You didn't have people intercepting terrorists or making the use of information that we had, because you did have this sense that domestic surveillance was a no-no. These are problems that I hope, again, the new administration, even before September 11, was taking more seriously. But certainly needs to now and I think is.
KEYES: Well, that's the question I was asking, though, because I think that a lot of folks looking at, I would have to assess a big share of the blame in the years before the Bush administration began. But I do believe that one has to be fair in looking at the question of whether or not, because I felt a certain sense of urgency myself when the administrations changed, that there were big holes left in various aspects of our national security and our defense, that needed to be remedied as a matter of first priority with the new administration coming in.
I guess I'm just asking what your sense was of those first months and the urgency that was attached to addressing the deficiencies that had been left by those previous years?
GAFFNEY: Yes. I think it was a mixed bag, to be honest. I think that the Bush administration was still getting its sea legs, and in particular, just as one example, the defense budget was simply not being provided with the resources that it needed prior to September 11. I think it's getting a fair slug of them now, not all, but some. But it was not during those first eight or nine months, and I think that was contributing to a compounding of the horrible legacy that President Clinton had bequeathed his successor. And, again, this has happened to us time and time — as you know as a student of history, Alan, this is the lot in life we seem to face here where we constantly are sacrificing national security, because we didn't see some imminent threat. Only to discover, too late, that we face it and we have to throw money at the problem and lives.
KEYES: And I think that is a difficulty, too, and that brings us to the question of congressional responsibility and years in which there were folks fighting against the increased resources needed in this area and that's something, though, Frank, we're going to have to leave for further discussion.
GAFFNEY: Look forward to it.
KEYES: We're obviously scratching the surface of this sensitive and critical topic. But as these hearings come forward, let's get back together and talk more about this. It will be of great importance to people in this country. Thanks joining us tonight.
GAFFNEY: Thank you.
KEYES: I really appreciate your taking the time.
Next, of course, we're going to get to the heart of the matter with a panel of folks who have some expertise in this critical and important area. Plus, our open phone line segment will be coming up shortly. Call me at 1-866-keyes-usa, 1-866-keyes-usa, with whatever is on your mind.
But first, do you think this makes sense? Here's what Larry Wortzell (ph), the director of Asian studies at the Heritage Foundation told the “Washington Times,” in advance of President Bush's trip to Asia.
“What was left unsaid in the State of the Union Address is that China is a major supplier of technologies, missiles, missile components to all three axis of evil states. If the president is going to stick to his principles in the war on terrorism, he has to state he will not look the other way. China is a proliferator and he can't ignore that.”
Now there are some folks who say that on his trip to Beijing, the president doesn't intend to give a high priority to this critical question. Hmm. Does that make sense?
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM J. CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have had some success with human intelligence. We need more of it. We need to do whatever is necessary and, yes, we need to do more to get more human intelligence. In the end, it's very difficult to get all this done with satellites and tapping of telephones and breaking into computers. You need to have people on the ground in the area if you're going to nail these people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: I have got to tell you, I kind of wish that President Clinton had had the intelligence to see the importance of that kind of intelligence before September 11 while he was still in office. Unhappily, that was not the case.
I'm Alan Keyes. Coming up in our next half hour, we're going to talk to Senator Richard Shelby, the vice chair of the intelligence committee. He is going to be deeply involved in the Congressional hearings, the joint hearings, that are going to take place into the terrorist attack.
But first, we're going to continue our conversation here about this serious and critical and sensitive question: Who dropped the ball on September 11? Are we looking at a situation that was the result of some deficiencies in our national security structure? If we're not willing to look hard and get answers to the question of what went wrong, are we, in fact, going to be able to correct it? Will we be able to trust the responses that we're coming up with? Obviously you can't fix a problem if you're not willing to understand what the problem is.
Here to help us get to the heart of the matter with respect to these issues, we have Clifford May from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, an organization created in reaction to the events surrounding September 11; James Dunnigan, a military analyst and author of the book “How To Make War; and Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor of the “Nation” magazine. Welcome to MAKING SENSE and thank you all for being with us tonight.
I want to start, Clifford, with your perspective on this. Looking at September 11, asking the question that we have put in pretty bald terms, who dropped the ball? Why are we looking at the results of some deficiencies that had been prepared over the years? What is your sense of what they were?
CLIFFORD MAY, FOUNDATION FOR THE DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: Alan, it was a system wide failure. It was a failure in many ways, a failure to conceptualize the problem, but also as you discussed a little bit, the failure was probably gravest at the CIA.
The CIA, by the mid '90s, was pretty much out of the spying game, as it would be defined. That is to say that we were not recruiting foreign agents. We didn't have, for example, in our London bureau, a single Arabic speaker. Our European allies also dropped the ball. They weren't doing the kind of intelligence work with human intelligence sources that you need to do, recruiting agents, running agents, finding out what's going on on the ground.
The satellites won't do it for you. They can tell you if there's a missile on the ground. They can't tell you if somebody plans to steal a jet plane and crash it into a building. That takes people. So from all those ways, it wasn't being done and we dropped the ball, basically, system wide, is a simple answer. But the CIA, that's the one that has to be repaired urgently. It's in very bad shape. And I think there is a question about whether it is going to be repaired the way it needs to be repaired.
KEYES: Katrina vanden Heuvel, do you agree with that or do you have a different perspective? Do you think that we were looking at the results of some deficiencies over the years? And what, if so, do you think they were?
KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL, EDITOR, “THE NATION”: Well, I think this is an agency, the CIA, locked in a Cold War mentality, it isn't equipped to deal with the threats of today: terrorism, drug trafficking, international crime, environmental threats.
But I think, you know, more important is the danger now of the, quote, “solutions”. To throw money at the intelligence community is ludicrous. The intelligence community has 80 percent higher budget than it did at the height of the Cold War and this discussion Mr. Gaffney led of political correctness is crazy also because to unleash the agency to work with thugs, this is a myth that there's a ban on working with thugs at the agency and also to begin covert operations as if this is a triumph of the agency blinds us to the fact that the agency funded the mujahideen, who — which led to the Taliban, which we are trying to overthrow and also, you know, things like overthrowing a modestly left government in the '50s in Iran leading to the Ayatollah, Iran is now, quote, “one of the countries of the axis of evil.”
KEYES: Katrina, if I can ask you a question though, to follow-up before we get our first reaction from James, the sense that I get from what you're saying, though, seems to express a kind of discomfort with the covert operations, with the kind of unsavory associations that resulted from it. Isn't that the very sort of hesitancy that may have contributed to our unwillingness to face the realities of what we need to do in human intelligence terms?
VANDEN HEUVEN: I would argue that the failure is primarily one of lack of coordination among agencies which already are equipped with adequate powers to combat terrorism. If the FBI had looked more carefully at the list of those associated with terrorism taking flying lessons, or if our defense budget, which is essentially part of our intelligence community budget, had been used not to favor a national missile defense program, which Mr. Gaffney has spent his life supporting, and that $65 billion over the last decade had been used to guards our borders more effectively or provide for airport security, I would argue we might have had a better chance in combating the tragedy of September 11.
KEYES: Let me get to James Dunnigan before I take the chair's prerogative and address one or two thoughts to that question. But James Dunnigan, what is your sense? Are we looking at a failure here on September 11 within our national security system? What do you think was the nature of it, if so? And what are the remedies?
JAMES DUNNIGAN, MILITARY ANALYST: Well, from looking at, it's politics as usual. But we have got to keep in mind who the CIA and the FBI work for. They work for the president. Who pays them? The Congress pays them. If anybody wants to survive, wants to have a career in the CIA or the FBI, they know that they have to, A: listen to what the president tells them to do and listen to any criticism they get from Congress because Congress approves their budget.
Now this has been going on not just this time, but ever since the end of World War II, ever since the CIA was created, ever since J. Edgar Hoover, you know, got bounced out of the FBI. We had these kinds of failures during the Vietnam War. There was a big blow-up. There was a big house cleaning in the CIA when people in the CIA went public with the fact that the Department of Defense was cooking the numbers over in Vietnam and a lot of other nasty stuff we'd rather not remember.
Same thing happened during the Cold War. I had a lot of arguments with people I know in the CIA over about they were analyzing the Soviet Union. I point it out in my books many times over that it was basically, you know, it wasn't 10-feet tall. It was a giant with feet of clay. And, of course, we all found out that to be very true in the late '80s and the early '90s.
KEYES: Now, if I can try and understand what you're saying, though, because one of the criticisms that I think does come from, say, Frank Gaffney, who I was talking to before, had to do with the politicization of intelligence, the unwillingness to be frank in one's assessment because you're trying to play up to whatever might be the prevailing political atmosphere. Is that the same as what you're talking about here?
DUNNIGAN: Yes. And the worst news I have to deliver is that this is not going to go away anytime soon. Already, we're seeing the effects of September 11 starting to wear off. Everybody was willing to do whatever needed to be done right after September 11. But already you're hearing people say, well, maybe we shouldn't go this far. You have got to remember that if you get into the human intelligence in parts of the world where Americans stand out, this didn't happen during the Cold War, we were fighting a gentleman's war with the Russians, but if you send people into South America, into the Middle East, one of them gets captured, we have a big mess, the media jumps all over it and Congress get very upset and the president is under a lot of pressure. So what is the easiest thing to do? Back off.
KEYES: Now Clifford, though, one of the problems I see in that kind of an analysis, very often, in order to get into these kinds of areas, you really have to make use of folks who already live there. And that's what I was thinking, Katrina, when you were raising the question a minute ago who we had been associated with in Afghanistan. What happened in the aftermath. The wisdom of hindsight is wonderful, but the truth is if you want information from the gutter, you have got to get down into the gutter to get it.
(CROSSTALK)
VANDEN HEUVEN: Excuse me, what kind of information did we get? We now have stinger weapons provided to the mujahideen which are part of the Taliban. What kind of information was that?
KEYES: Clifford?
MAY: You're exactly right. You have to know about intentions and the only way you do that is actually not with your own American agents. They can't get down far enough. They have to recruit local agents who speak a language, who can get in. They have to recruit spies, traitors sometimes, people who can get into these organizations like al Qaeda and come back. They weren't doing that, we weren't doing that kind of work in the '90s. We left that out. Neither were the Europeans.
The only people who continued to recruit agents who spoke Arabics, to recruit agents in these terrorist organizations, frankly, were the Israelis. They had no choice because for the Israelis, this was a matter of survival. But I hoped we've waked up and now we realize this is about our survival as well at this point. Katrina vanden Heuvel says the problem is a Cold War mentality. Quite the opposite. It is the post-Cold War mentality that we don't really have any grave dangers out there that we can continue swatting mosquitoes and we never need to drain the swamp. That is the problem.
KEYES: And I think in a way, Katrina, I have to say that I sense in what you are saying, the kind of mentality that in the course of the '90s, for instance, even after the Clinton folks started to realize, as Clinton was just admitting that human intelligence was importance and we need to do some more of it, they actually found staunch opposition in their own party from folks who by and large were expressing the very kind of sensitivities that you are representing on the program here tonight.
Are we going to have the same kind of expressions keeping us from doing what's necessary to defend ourselves in the months and years ahead now that we've seen the results of this kind of neglect firsthand in New York City and in Washington?
VANDEN HEUVEN: Well, we are at war with a force of terrorism and we are at war, attempting to uphold values that this country stands for. But I have to say just pragmatically, the so-called ban on assassinations and your lamenting about what, you know, people attacking the church commission in the '70s for attempting to limit the CIA, which it did not, or legislation attempting to limit working with thugs, it's just not true. Those limitations, one, on working with thugs, it's just means the CIA at a higher level has to support that activity.
And what has the ban on assassinations led to? If you look at Fidel Castro, he is the longest running leader in this hemisphere and the agency tried to assassinate him more than any other leader. I would simply argue that it is a Cold War mentality because you do rely on these satellites which are ineffective. You may need human intelligence, but people who work in the agency argue that the human intelligence you may need may just be good political analysis out of embassies, that you have to focus on closed societies, on terrorist operations, but that the moment the agencies spread across the globe is ineffective in its human intelligence, not for the reasons you're saying.
(CROSSTALK)
DUNNIGAN: You have got to keep in mind that everybody's afraid of this thing blowing back in their faces. We cannot underestimate the fear around the Beltway for some operation, you know, some dirty operation in hindsight blowing up in somebody's face and somebody's career going down in flames. I mean, these people do this for a living. They're not kamikazes. They want to survive.
KEYES: The great problem that I hear in all of this is that somebody, in order to cover their behinds, is in a situation where they are hesitant to do what is necessary in order to make sure that the American people are covered when it comes to a threat like this.
One final issue I'd like to get into — we're running short of time — but some of the information that appeared to be on the table before September 11 was in the hands of the intelligence agencies. There were other bits and pieces of information in the hands of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the FBI, other agencies of this kind, including the Coast Guard.
What about the coordination problem? Weren't we looking at least in part at a problem where these pieces were not put together in a proper inter agency process where folks with the kind of intelligence that was needed could look at them and try to see, sort out what was important, what was not, see the big picture? The coordination is supposed to be done, I think, within the National Security Council and the National Security Advisers Shop. Don't we have to look there as well, Clifford?
(CROSSTALK)
MAY: Alan, you absolutely do. And just consider if you have got a suspected foreign terrorist, the CIA deals with them abroad, then that terrorist can get from the State Department through the consulate general his visa. He comes here and the FBI is supposed to take over, but it is the INS who is responsible for his movements.
Now, can all that be coordinated? Yes, it can. Was it? Absolutely not. That wasn't the case. And a lot — just to be fair, money was spent during the Clinton administration, but it was spent on things like medical sectors and concrete barriers, hardening defenses. And you'll never beat terrorism that way. You have to go out and find it.
And one of the things that was not done, for example, we knew that...
KEYES: Cliff? Cliff?
MAY: I'm sorry. Go ahead.
KEYES: I have to interrupt you. We are running out of time. I want to thank you all for coming in this evening to really begin this discussion because I think we are going to be revisiting these issues...
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KEYES: Welcome back to MAKING SENSE.
This evening, we've been talking about a question both difficult and sensitive.
We all want to be pulling together as we respond to the threat of terrorism, and yet how can we know that we're doing an effective job unless we're willing to take a look at what led up to September 11th and get some idea of whether and who dropped the ball that led to those tragic events.
That's particularly true in terms of our national security establishment and, of course, we the people are not the only folks who will be asking that question. Our elected representatives, obviously with an oversight responsibility, will be taking the issue up in a very responsible way.
Soon to be started, there will be Intelligence Committee hearings to look specifically at the question of what kind of answer we can get with respect to the intelligence community.
We're very pleased to have for the bottom line this evening, Senator Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama. Senator Shelby is the vice chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, which will be holding those hearings, looking into these very questions.
Welcome to MAKING SENSE, Senator. Thank you for being with us.
SEN. RICHARD SHELBY (R-AL), SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE VICE CHAIR: Thank you, Alan, for having me on.
KEYES: Well, it is a difficult question, but, as we look at the events of September 11th, it's kind of hard to believe that we'll be able to deal effectively with the threat of terrorism unless we are willing to ask some hard questions about what led up to those events.
Would it be your sense that one of those questions has to do with whether we did, in fact, see a failure in our intelligence community and what kind of failure that might have been?
SHELBY: Alan, you're absolutely on point. I think we have to look back, perhaps at least to '85, and build from that, and we will in our probe. This probe, this investigation, has to be deep, and it has to be broad, and it can leave no stone unturned for it to be credible.
KEYES: Now do you think — because I know that there are some folks who — as one talks about what happened within the agencies themselves, there have been suggestions that maybe we didn't have the depth that we needed in dealing with some of the communities which are seed beds for terrorism.
But other folks point the finger and say but the intelligence community wasn't given the kind of help and support in terms of its budget, in terms of taking seriously the need for this kind of approach. They point the finger at Congress.
Do you think that that's going to be part of what we're looking at here in terms of what hppened during the '90s and what kind of people in Congress were opposing the necessary increases in funding in this area?
SHELBY: Alan, I think it could be all and part of that. There were, I believe, failures because of lack of emphasis, a lack of coordination, perhaps lack of leadership, and lack of funding. Make no mistake about it.
KEYES: And one of the areas that I think is particularly sensitive has to do with whether or not we were taking seriously the need for human intelligence. I think, as far back as the Carter years, there seemed to be a shift in emphasis during that administration, putting an emphasis on technology.
Do you think that part of our problem was an excessive reliance on technological responses that didn't give a proper emphasis to the need to maintain an infrastructure of human intelligence?
SHELBY: Alan, I do believe that to be the case. I believe that there has not been and hasn't been for a number of years enough emphasis, enough funding, enough training, enough recruiting for the human intelligence agents. We call it HUMINT, our personal intelligence agents all over the world. There's no substitute for them. Technology cannot substitute for the personal touch.
KEYES: Why do you think it's been so difficult to get a proper understanding of the critical importance of human intelligence, both within different administrations and within the Congress?
SHELBY: Well, I believe at this juncture — and we don't know all the answers, but, at this juncture, my view from my seven years — and this is my eighth year — as a member of the Intelligence Committee, there are a lot of people that have just not wanted to fund intelligence agencies, have not wanted to even deal with the NSA as it reached a critical stage of breaking down.
Also, people in the Senate have told me at times when I was moving a budget on the floor, said, “Look, why do we need the CIA?” And I said, “Gosh, we need it, and we need it — one that will work because, although the world has changed, there are more challenges out there than there's ever been bfore.”
We need a agile CIA. We need a CIA with all kinds of skills, and we're getting there. But I think we can do better, Alan.
KEYES: Do you think that one of the problems, Senator, has been that very often in intelligence, you're operating sometimes in a gray area. There have been concerns over abuses, concerns over the type of people you have to work with.
Obviously, if you're going to get information about the bad guys, sometimes you've got to deal with bad guys. Do you think there's been a lack of realism on the part of some about this?
SHELBY: Absolutely. Starting in the Clinton administration, under John Deutch when he was director of CIA, he basically said to the CIA agents around the world, “Get rid of your assets unless they belong to the Rotary Club.” I mean, of course, not literally the Rotary Club, but Boy Scouts and stuff like that.
But we all know you've got to get down where the dirt is. That FBI broke open the Mafia because they penetrated the Mafia. We've got to do the same thing all over the world. We're making headway, but we've got a long way to go, and we can get there.
But part of our inquiry is to see what does — what do the agencies need, all 13 of the intelligence agencies, in the challenge of the 21st century, especially terrorism, because if we're going to win this war, itbuilds on information, which is intelligence. We have to be better than we are today.
KEYES: Well, one of the things I noticed in a lot of the articles that have been written and folks, when they have been commenting on this — they've also, though, pointed out that we had bits and pieces of information that, if they had been assembled, might have given a picture that could have led to some better preparedness.
Was there a problem that goes beyond just intelligence gathering and that has to do with the larger issue of coordination, not just among intelligence agencies but between the agencies and other parts of the government that are part of the national security structure? Was there a coordination difficulty as well? Will you be looking into that?
SHELBY: We will. We will be looking at that, and there is a problem there. We probably gather a lot more information than we analyze or use. There are also stove pipes. There have been a lot of stove pipes. In other words, one agency doesn't deal with the other, at least not sufficiently. And we're moving in the right direction after September 11th...
KEYES: Well, some people say...
SHELBY: ... but we're not there.
KEYES: Some say that there's been a sensitivity about this particular issue because, even though one might ascribe the lack of preparedness in some ways to periods before the Bush administration, that the coordination problem is actually a problem that has to be laid at the doorstep of the National Security Council staff, the national security adviser.
Are you all going to be looking at whether there was a failure of coordination in the months running up to this?
SHELBY: Well, we're going to have to. That's part — it's going to have to be part of our probe, and we're also going to have to make some recommendations to the Congress and to the White House as to how some of these things need to be changed positively.
KEYES: Senator, I want to thank you very much for coming on at this critical time...
SHELBY: Thank you, Alan.
KEYES: ... talking to us about this critical topic. We'll be watching with interest the developments in your investigation since, obviously, a lot of things depend on it for the American people. I wish you Godspeed in your efforts. Thank you.
SHELBY: Thank you.
KEYES: Appreciate your being with us tonight.
Next, I want to hear what's on your mind on any topic in the news. Just call me at 1-866-KEYES-USA. 1-866-KEYES-USA.
You're watching MSNBC, the best news on cable.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Welcome back to MAKING SENSE.
I was just looking in on the chat room over here. One of the folks commented that she had thought before this terrible event that it couldn't happen here and she was naive about that.
I think that expresses, unhappily, the state of mind of all too many Americans before the attacks on September 11th. We sure have been shaken out of that lethargy now. Let's hope we can move in a constructive direction.
Now to see what's on your mind, let's go first to Jeny in Indiana.
Jeny, welcome to MAKING SENSE.
JENY: Thank you, Alan.
I've been watching the show tonight, and there's been a lot of generalities, but what I would really like to know exactly is where were our fighter pilots? Andrews Air Force Base is only 10 miles away, and I know they have two fighter squadrons there. Was there somebody who grounded them there? It just doesn't make sense.
KEYES: Well, I think that is a question that has been raised — I've noticed it in chat rooms, on the Internet, and so forth — by a lot of folks, and I think it's one of the things that needs to be looked into, overall the sense that maybe the question of our domestic air space and the defense of that air space, which, for various reasons, had been changed in its priorities over the course of the budget cycles preceding the September 11th attack, and what consequence that might have had, relevance it might have had on September 11th, as well as the question of whose responsibility it might have been, particularly to defend the Pentagon.
I've asked that question myself, not only about scrambling jet fighters, but, you know, we have technology that can take planes out of the sky from the ground, and we even shared that technology with folks in Afghanistan years ago, and you do wonder why it was not employed to better effect in defense of our own national security headquarters.
But these are, indeed, the kind of questions that will have to be looked into. We don't have the answers now.
Let's go to Tomas in Michigan.
Tomas, welcome to MAKING SENSE.
TOMAS: Thank you, Mr. Keyes. Thank you for the opportunity.
With even — my question is, with even the unprecedented intelligence gathering that Israel has failing to stop a suicide attacks over there, why is it President Bush is not politically courageous enough to control our borders now?
KEYES: Well, I'm not sure what you mean. Obviously, no matter what we do, up to a certain extent, there are going to be some of these kinds of activities that are going to slip past us.
When you are faced with the kind of result we saw on September 11th, several coordinated attacks that, as we have learned, were planned and carried out by folks who had been working at them not just for months, but for years and had been on the radar screen in various ways in some of our various intelligence agencies and others —
I think looking at that kind of picture, we're not just talking about one little terrorist act that slipped through the net. We're talking about a major and egregious breach of national security on a large scale that then has to raise questions about whether or not the system itself is in good order, and I think that's why the folks in the Congress are going to be taking a hard look at it.
Tomas, thank you for your call.
Let's go to Sam in Wisconsin.
Sam, welcome to MAKING SENSE.
SAM: Dr. Keyes, thank you.
Could you please address the legitimacy of the claim that Ariel Sharon's — prime minister of Israel, visit to the Temple Mount started the Intifada 17 months ago?
KEYES: I think the notion that that somehow started the Intifada as opposed to being the spark that was an occasion or excuse for an intensification of violent actions against Israel — that's the distinction that I would make because I think that's actually what occurred.
But then you have to ask whether or not that wasn't in the context of a strategic decision on the part of some of the folks on the Arab side to increase the intensity of their violence in order to put pressure on a government that they disliked and they would have found an excuse for it in any case.
If that, in fact, was the case, then if it hadn't been the Temple Mount, it would have been something else, but we would face the same kind of strategic result, I think.
Thank you for your call, Sam.
Let's go to Adam in California.
Adam, welcome to MAKING SENSE.
ADAM: Thank you, Dr. Keyes. I appreciate you listening to me.
My question is — I think everyone's missing the point here on the lesson of September 11th, and that is...
KEYES: Adam, you have to get quickly to the point. We're running out of time.
ADAM: OK. How you can possibly lay the blame at the foot of the Clinton administration when it was the Reagan and Bush administrations that created these monsters in the first place and their slant towards big business, which wouldn't have put any restrictions on the airlines to beef up security.
KEYES: Well, in point of fact, I don't understand how you can say we created these monsters when something like al Qaeda actually came from first the independent wealth that we saw in the hands of Osama bin Laden, then funded through Saudi networks.
I will acknowledge to you, though, that I think we have a hinge here because of the interest that some folks have in Saudi Arabia, China, and other places in money making that perhaps keeps them from allowing us to look squarely at some of the security threats that their backing for these activities may pose. But that's a question we're going to have to start taking seriously.
I want to thank you for your feedback.
Next, a personal note on President's Day. It's not a day I'm particularly fond of, and I'll tell you why.
I'll be right back.
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KEYES: If we have a day that honors all the presidents, don't we dishonor the greatest ones? That's my sense of it. See you tomorrow.